JOHN  G.  WHITTIER 


The  Poet  of  Freedom 


BY 

WILLIAM  SLOANE  KENNEDY 


''  He  that  knows  anything  worth  communicating  and 
does  not  comnttinicate  it,  let  him  be  hanged  by  the 
neck" — TALMUD. 


PRINTED  IN  THE   UNITED  STATES 


¥ortt 

FUNK   &   WAGNALLS   COMPANY 

LONDON  AND  TORONTO 

1892 


Copyright  1892  by  the 
FUNK    &   WAGNALI.S    COMPANY 


PREFACE.  "> /> 



WHILE  the  manuscript  of  this  volume  was  lying  in 
the  safe  of  the  publishers,  I  made  a  little  Whittier 
itinerary  along  the  storied  Essex  coast, — a  voyage 
through  Whittier  ballad-land,  bringing  before  my 
eyes  the  very  scenes  of  the  poems  in  the  study  of  the 
sources  of  which  in  the  libraries  I  had  made  such  de 
lightful  and  exciting  discoveries.  After  adventures 
manifold  and  pleasant  I  found  myself  on  the  top  of 
Powow  Hill,  that  rises  just  above  our  poet's  old 
home  in  Amesbury.  From  this  coigne  of  vantage  the 
eye  takes  in,  in  one  swift  coup  d'ceil,  a  mighty  spread 
of  landscape  and  sea,  beginning  with  conical  Aga- 
menticus,  violet-dim  and  far,  in  Maine,  resting  for  a 
moment  on  the  Isles  of  Shoals,  Little  Boar's  Head, 
Great  Boar's  Head,  and  Salisbury  Beach,  traveling 
along  the  tumbled  sand  dunes  of  the  Ipswich  coast, 
catching  over  the  blue  sea-floor  the  white  sparkle  of 
the  houses  of  Cape  Ann,  fetching  a  compass  over 
Danvers  and  Haverhill,  to  finally  rest  on  the  far 
range  of  the  Pawtuckaway  Hills.  This  is  Essex 
County  with  its  winding  roads,  old  shingled  barns, 
huge  stranded  rocks,  sea  estuaries,  clean  quiet  little 
sea  towns  and  rugged  honest  folk, — the  Attica  of 
Massachusetts.  What  the  view  from  Powow  Hill  is 
to  the  traveler  I  hope  this  book  will  be  to  the  indoor 
reader  of  Whittier's  ballads.  I  have  done  my  best  to 
show  that  Flood  Ireson  was  justly  tarred  and 
feathered,  that  John  Brown  did  stoop  to  kiss  the  slave 
child,  that  Barbara  Frietchie  did  wave  that  historic 
flag  in  the  face  of  the  Confederate  troops,  that  at 


IV.  PREFACE. 

Lucknow  both  loud  and  sweet  "  the  pipes  of  rescue 
blew,"  that  Whittier's  story  of  the  wreck  of  the 
"  Palatine  "  is  true  to  the  letter,  and  that  the  romantic 
story  of  Harriet  Livermore  is  truth  stranger  than 
fiction.  If,  however,  you  observe  with  curious  interest 
how  very  often  the  poet  slips  in  minor  matters  of 
historical  accuracy  in  his  rhymed  poems,  you  may 
ponder  the  words  of  Ruskin  where  he  tells  us  that 
"  a  lovely  legend  is  all  the  more  precious  when  it  has 
no  foundation."  Cincinnatus  or  any  other  man  might 
have  plowed  a  field  fifty  times  over  and  it  would 
have  signified  little  to  us  ;.  but  if  no  Cincinnatus 
existed  at  all,  and  yet  the  Roman  people,  to  express 
their  conviction  that  tilling  the  soil  is  a  noble  occu 
pation,  invented  a  Cincinnatus  out  of  hand  and  en 
shrined  him  for  all  time  in  their  literature, — "  this 
precious  coinage  out  of  the  brain  and  conscience  of 
a  mighty  people  "  we  had  better  take  to  heart  most 
diligently. 

The  full  story  of  the  part  Whittier  played  in  the 
anti-slavery  movement  is  here  set  down  for  the  first 
time  in  book  form.  Many  interesting  and  unexpected 
things  plowed  up  during  my  researches  into  such 
subjects  as  the  mobbings  in  which  Whittier  was  a 
sufferer,  the  burning  of  Pennsylvania  Hall  in  Phila 
delphia,  the  estrangement  of  years  which  Garrison's 
narrow  intolerance  produced  between  himself  and 
Whittier,  with  the  subsequent  reconciliation  of  the 
two,  and  the  story  of  the  rise  and  fall  of  the  Liberty 
Party,  the  lineal  predecessor  of  the  party  that  saved 
the  Union. 

BELMONT,  MASS. 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  I. 
ON  THE  FARM .. 7 

CHAPTER   II. 
THE   ANTI-SLAVERY    CONTEST 58 

CHAPTER   III. 
WHITTIER  AT    HOME.. _ 170 

CHAPTER   IV. 
FRIENDSHIPS  AND  OPINIONS 200 

CHAPTER   V. 

"TELLING  THE  BEES,"   AND  OTHER  BALLADS 220 

CHAPTER   VI. 
STORIES    IN    RHYME ._ __  268 

APPENDIX. 

I.   REFERENCE   TABLE   FOR  DATES 313 

II.    BIBLIOGRAPHY 317 


INDEX _ -   325 


JOHN    G.   WHITTIER. 


CHAPTER  I. 

ON      THE      FA  RM. 

IN  July,  1867,  Bayard  Taylor  wrote  to  his  friend, 
Edmund  Clarence  Stedman,  from  Friedrichroda  in 
the  Thuringian  forest :  "  How  delighted  I  am  with 
Whittier's  success  !  Fields  writes  that  his  *  Tent ' 
has  already  sold  twenty  thousand  copies.  Here  is  a 
man  who  has  waited  twenty-five  years  to  be  generally 
appreciated.  I  remember  when  his  name  was  never 
mentioned  without  a  sneer,  except  by  the  small 
Abolition  clique.  In  England,  too,  they  are  now 
beginning  to  read  him  for  the  first  time."  1 

These  statements  of  Whittier's  friend  are  true  in 
the  main,  but  need  to  be  somewhat  qualified  and 
annotated.  It  will  hardly  do  to  say  that  Whittier  was 
not  generally  appreciated  previous  to  1866-67,  when 
we  remember  that  an  edition  of  his  collected  works 
had  been  reviewed  with  high  praise  by  Edwin  P. 
Whipple  as  early  as  1848  ;  that  in  1857  he  had  helped 
to  establish  the  "  Atlantic  Monthly,"  and  that  in  the 


'  Life  and  Letters  of  Bayard  Taylor,  ii.  479. 


8  JOHN    G.    WHITTIER. 

same  year  the  little  two-volume  blue  and  gold  edition 
of  his  poems  was  published  by  Ticknor  &  Fields, 
and  had  a  tolerably  large  circulation  throughout  the 
country.  And  it  is  further  to  be  noted  that  his 
''Kansas  Emigrants"  song  had  been  sung  from 
Massachusetts  Bay  to  the  Missouri  River  by  the 
pioneer  settlers  of  the  debated  ground  ;  that  the 
maturest  creations  of  his  art  had  been  published 
(such  ballads  as  "  Maud  Muller,"  "  Barbara  Frietchie," 
"  Skipper  Ireson,"  "  Mabel  Martin,"  "  Telling  the 
Bees,"  and  "  The  Pipes  at  Lucknow  ")  ;  and  that  at 
least  two  of  his  war  poems — "  Ein'  Feste  Burg"  and 
"  Song  of  the  Negro  Boatmen  " — had  been  sung  in 
the  Northern  armies. 

Still,  it  is  a  fact  that  the  publication  in  1866-67  of 
"  Snow-Bound  "  and  "  The  Tent  on  the  Beach,"  with 
its  included  ballads,  greatly  increased  the  poet's 
fame.  For  thirty-five  years  he  had  been  chiefly 
known  as  the  bard  of  a  despised  cause.  But  the  war 
had  come  and  gone,  the  slaves  had  been  freed,  and 
in  any  case  the  people  of  the  whole  country  would 
have  turned  with  reverence  to  the  pages  of  the  poet 
of  freedom  ;  but  his  idyl  "  Snow-Bound,"  and  his 
beautiful  ballads,  lifted  him  into  the  rank  of  a  national 
poet,  and  he  has  since  been  greeted  as  such  on  both 
sides  of  the  sea. 

There  is  fitness  in  the  title  "  Poet  of  Free 
dom  "  as  applied  to  John  G.  Whittier ;  for  the 
inastor-passion  of  his  soul  is  hatred  of  tyranny. 
When  there  is  no  brother-man,  heart-broken  and  in 
chains,  to  rescue,  no  inhumanity  to  arraign  in  words 
of  withering  scorn,  then  he  finds  a  little  leisure 
to  write  ballads  and  songs.  I  find  by  actual 


ON    THE    FARM.  9 

count  that  in  more  than  a  third  of  his  poems  freedom 
is  either  the  main  theme  or  is  alluded  to  in  passing. 
In  love  of  liberty  and  the  singleness  of  aim  with  which 
he  has  devoted  his  life  to  its  defense  Whittier  re 
sembles  John  Brown.  In  both,  the  moral  idea  flames 
out  with  volcanic  power.  Both  were  sinewed  by  out 
door  life.  But  John  Brown  was  a  mechanism  of  steel 
and  iron  ;  the  soul  of  Whittier  may  be  likened  to  the 
frail  plant  Dictamnus  set  in  a  porcelain  vase, — a  plant 
which  on  a  hot  day  is  surrounded  by  an  inflammable 
gas  that  ignites  with  a  sudden  flash  when  a  flame  is 
applied  to  it. 

In  the  later  poetical  work  of  Whittier — that  pro 
duced  after  the  Civil  War — purely  literary  topics 
naturally  predominate,  although  at  irregular  inter 
vals  the  old  lyre  of  freedom  is  taken  up,  either  to 
chant  a  paean  for  some  triumph  of  human  rights  at 
home  or  abroad  or  to  strike  the  minor  chords  over 
the  passing  away  of  a  comrade  of  the  old  anti- 
slavery  days.  Indeed,  for  several  years  before  the 
war  broke  out,  he  had  been  engaged  in  purely  literary 
work  (Songs  of  Labor  and  folk  ballads).  So  it  is 
evident  that  the  lines  of  his  intellectual  development 
were  not  altogether  determined  by  national  or 
political  events,  nor  were  precisely  coincident  with 
these,  but  that  his  growth  followed  the  common  law 
of  men  and  nations, — first  the  age  of  manly  energy, 
self-assertion,  and  moral  strife  ;  then  an  epoch  of 
peaces  in  which  the  ideal  arts,  after  long  slumber, 
suddenly  crystallize  into  shapes  of  beauty. 

Although  the  lives  of  poets  are  seldom  rich  in 
dramatic  events,  they  are  often  ennobled  by  rare 
friendships  and  set  in  an  interesting  environment.  In 


10  JOHN    G.    WHITTIER. 

the  case  of  Whittier,  extreme  dislike  of  publicity  has 
not  availed  to  conceal  his  personal  adventures  in  the 
anti-slavery  crusade,  nor  to  keep  enthusiastic  friends 
from  printing  descriptions  of  his  personal  appearance 
and  ways.  After  all,  his  life  has  been  a  semi-public 
one,  and  I  feel  sure  our  dear  friend  will  forgive  me 
for  just  weaving  into  a  connected  narrative  such 
matters  as  may  permissibly  be  known  of  his  outward 
life. 

The  rugged  and  hilly  old  county  of  Essex,  Mas 
sachusetts,  may  be  called  the  cradle  of  American 
poets  ;  for  in  its  town  of  Haverhill,  by  the  Merri- 
mack,  the  poet  Whittier  was  born  (December  17, 
1807  '),  and  in  the  neighboring  town  of  Newbury 
lived  the  immediate  ancestors  of  Longfellow  and 
Lowell.  The  old  farm-house,  the  birthplace  of 
Whittier,  is  only  five  miles  from  the  ancestral  estate 
of  the  Longfellows.  Three  miles  to  the  southeast 
lies  the  town  of  Haverhill.  The  Whittier  farm  is  at 
the  junction  of  the  main  road  to  Haverhill  and  a 
cross-road  to  Plaistow.  It  is  so  situated,  in  a  de 
pression  between  surrounding  hills,  that  no  other 
house  is  visible  from  it  in  any  direction.  The  whole 
locality  reminds  one  of  the  "  Knobs  "  of  Kentucky, 
being  made  up  of  gently  rounded  hills  set  close 
together.  In  the  Great  West  they  call  such  rough 
land  as  this  "  sassy  country."  On  the  road  to  Haver- 


1  Some  one  having  raised  a  doubt  as  to  the  exact  date  of  his 
birth,  Mr.  Whittier  humorously  said,  "  I  cannot  say  positively  from 
my  personal  knowledge  when  I  was  born,  but  my  mother  told  me 
it  was  on  the  I7th  of  December,  1807,  and  she  was  a  very  truthful 
woman." 


ON    THE    FARM.  II 

hill  you  pass,  on  the  left,  Kenoza  lake, — so  christened 
by  Whittier, — filled  with  purest  water,  and  terraced 
by  thick-wooded  slopes.  A  little  farther  on,  the 
road  skirts  the  base  of  a  high  hill  crowned  by  a 
castellated  stone  dwelling,  from  which  one  catches 
glimpses,  far  off,  of  blue  Monadnock  and  many  New 
England  towns,  sparkling  white  on  the  slopes  of 
azure  hills. 

Past  Haverhill  winds  the  placid  Merrimack,  now 
made  classic  by  the  genius  of  Whittier.  Born  amid 
the  snows  and  springs  of  the  White  Mountains  ;  tak 
ing  tribute  of  many  crystal  streams  as  it  flows  south; 
its  mountain  brawling  hushed  by  a  plunge  through 
the  deeps  of  beautiful  Winnepesaukee  ;  sliding 
through  the  grassy  meadows  of  Concord  studded 
with  elms  ;  fretting  and  chafing  among  the  rapids  of 
Suncook  and  Hookset ;  turning  successively  the 
wheels  of  the  huge  mills  of  Manchester,  Nashua, 
Lowell,  and  Lawrence  ;  passing  by  Haverhill,  New- 
bury,  Amesbury,  the  mouth  of  the  winding  and  nar 
row  Powow,  the  silver  Quasycung,  and  the  bough- 
hung  Artichoke,  and  at  its  mouth  separating  .the 
towns  of  Newburyport  and  Salisbury, — it  finally  falls 
into  the  sea  at  Ipswich  Bay. 

It  is  about  seventeen  miles  from  Haverhill,  down 
the  river,  to  Newburyport  ;  and  about  half  way  down 
lies  Amesbury,  at  the  junction  of  the  Powow  with 
the  main  stream.  Amesbury  was  the  home  of 
Whittier  for  twenty-five  years  ;  and  he  still  owns  his 
house  there,  and  keeps  in  it  a  study,  with  a  few 
books  and  pictures  and  an  open  fire,  as  a  place  of 
retreat,  and  for  the  sake  of  many  precious  memories. 
A  horse-railroad  connects  Amesbury  with  Newbury- 


12  JOHN    G.    WHITTIER. 

port,  the  birthplace  of  William  Lloyd  Garrison.  As 
you  go  down,  you  look  across  at  the  wide  and  far- 
reaching  salt  meadows  of  Hampton,  emerald  green 
in  summer,  and  purple  and  brown  in  autumn.  About 
half  way  from  Amesbury  to  the  sea,  your  horse-car 
trundles  across  Deer  Island, — wild,  rugged,  and 
picturesque,  its  huge  one-handed  pines  griping  the 
weather-stained  granite  with  knotty  fingers,  their 
branches  the  resting-place  of  hawks  and  crows, 
eagles  and  herons.  The  only  house  on  the  island  is 
the  home  of  Whittier's  friend,  Harriet  Prescott  Spof- 
ford. 

Off  the  mouth  of  the  river,  Plum  Island  lies  "  like 
a  whale  aground."  Off  to  the  northeast  are  discern 
ible  the  Isles  of  Shoals,  whose  fair  Calypso  (Celia 
Thaxter)  is  said  to  have  been  introduced  to  the  world 
of  letters  by  Whittier.  On  the  rocks  of  Appledore 
he  has  often  sat,  of  an  evening,  to  watch  the  gold- 
lamps  kindled  in  the  lighthouses  of  Portsmouth  and 
White  Island.  Indeed,  this  whole  sea-region — Hamp 
ton  beaches,  Rivermouth  Rocks,  Plum  Island,  the 
Isles  of  Shoals — has  been  sung  by  Whittier  in  his 
classic  ballads.  He  is  familiar  with  almost  every 
acre  of  this  part  of  Essex  County.  Some  lines  he 
wrote  in  1885,  for  the  25oth  anniversary  of  the  settle 
ment  of  Newbury,  would  apply  to  half  a  dozen  other 
neighboring  towns  as  well.  He  said  :  "  Although  I 
can  hardly  call  myself  a  son  of  the  ancient  town,  my 
grandmother,  Sarah  Greenleaf,  of  blessed  memory, 
was  its  daughter,  and  I  may  therefore  claim  to  be  its 
grandson.  All  my  life  I  have  lived  in  sight  of  its 
green  hills  and  in  hearing  of  its  Sabbath  bells.  Its 
history  and  legends  are  familiar  to  me.  I  seem  to 


ON    THE    FARM.  13 

have  known  all  its  old  worthies,  whose  descendants 
have  helped  to  people  a  continent,  and  who  have 
carried  the  name  and  memories  of  their  birthplace  to 
the  Mexican  Gulf  and  across  the  Rocky  Mountains 
to  the  shores  of  the  Pacific." 

When,  in  early  boyhood,  Whittier  first  read  the 
poetry  of  Burns,  and  learned  from  it  where  to  look 
for  true  poetic  material, — namely,  in  the  common 
heart  and  the  common  life, — he  found  a  store  of 
legends  ready  to  his  hand,  in  the  homes  of  the 
inhabitants  of  the  Merrimack  Valley,  just  as 
Burns  had  found  them  on  the  banks  of  the  Ayr. 
Burns  tells  us  that,  when  he  was  a  boy,  his  imagina 
tion  was  greatly  stimulated  by  the  talk  of  an  old 
woman  who  resided  in  the  family.  She  had  the 
largest  collection  in  the  country  of  tales  and  songs 
concerning  devils,  ghosts,  fairies,  brownies,  witches, 
warlocks,  spunkies,  kelpies,  elf-candles,  dead-lights, 
wraiths,  apparitions,  cantrips,  giants,  enchanted 
towers,  dragons,  and  other  trumpery.  So  Whittier 
grew  up  in  an  atmosphere  thick  with  legends  of  the 
marvelous, — stories  of  headless  men  walking  about 
with  their  heads  under  their  arms ;  traditions 
of  second-sight  ;  of  witches  innumerable  and  their 
wicked  deeds  ;  of  haunted  mills  kept  running 
o'  nights  by  ghostly  millers  ;  of  phantom  ships  and 
spectral  armies  ;  of  singing  witch-grass  at  the  spring 
"  where  withered  hags  refresh  at  ease  their  broom 
stick  nags  "  ;  and  of  wizards  skilled  in  calling  birds 
out  of  trees,  hiving  the  swarming  bees,  and  by 
a  potent  spell  making  the  dry  logs  and  frosted 
branches  of  winter  green  with  summer  bloom.  I 
shall  speak,  farther  on,  of  the  pretty  superstition  of 


14  JOHN    G.    WHITTIER. 

telling  the  bees  of  the  death  of  a  member  of  the 
family.  The  belief  in  fairies  was  by  no  means  extinct 
in  the  Whittier  neighborhood.  The  poet  has  several 
folk-lore  incidents  about  them  in  his  prose  and 
verse. 

One  cannot  open  any  early  book  published  in 
Newbury  without  coming  across  queer  legends  and 
superstitions.  In  the  Reminiscences  of  Mrs.  Sarah 
Emery,  we  are  told  that  her  aunt,  Ruth  Little,  had  a 
heifer  that  one  day  kicked  over  the  milk-pail,  where 
upon  she  declared  that  the  animal  was  bewitched  by 
a  poor  woman  who  lived  near.  So  off  she  rushes  to 
the  house,  gets  her  sharp  shears,  and,  cutting  off  some 
hairs  from  the  heifer's  tail,  burns  them.  In  a  few 
days  it  was  learned  that  the  suspected  woman  had 
badly  burned  her  hand  on  the  warming-pan.  Aunt 
Ruth  stoutly  maintained  that  the  burning  of  the  hei 
fer's  hair  and  that  of  the  woman's  hand  were  cause 
and  effect,  and,  in  her  mind  at  least,  no  doubt 
remained  as  to  the  woman's  character. 

Of  a  certain  extremely  thin  and  gaunt  spinster, 
reported  witch,  it  was  mysteriously  whispered  to  Mr. 
Whittier  by  one  of  the  pall-bearers  at  her  funeral 
that  her  coffin  was  so  heavy  that  four  stout  men  could 
barely  lift  it. 

Mr.  Whittier  tells  of  a  stout,  red-nosed  farmer 
whom  he  used  to  meet  occasionally  in  boyhood,  who, 
having  emigrated  to  Ohio,  and  taken  a  certain  widow 
to  wife,  became  gradually  convinced  that  the  warn 
ings  he  had  received  from  her  neighbors  were  true, 
and  that  his  wife  was  a  witch.  He  grew  so  hypo- 
chondriacal  over  this  idea  that,  unable  any  longer  to 
endure  her  society,  he  ran  away  and  came  back  to 


ON    THE    FARM.  15 

New  England,  but  was  followed,  captured,  and  taken 
back  to  Ohio  by  the  too-fond  wife. 

Near  the  home  of  the  mother  of  our  poet,  in  Som- 
ersworth,  New  Hampshire,  there  dwelt  a  quiet  old 
Quaker,  named  Bantum,  who  exercised,  in  all  sim 
plicity  and  sobriety,  the  art  of  magic  and  conjury. 
His  help  was  sought  by  lovers  of  both  sexes  and  by 
persons  in  search  of  stolen  goods.  He  would  receive 
them  all  kindly,  put  on  his  huge  iron-rimmed  spec 
tacles,  open  his  conjuring-book — a  great  clasped  vol 
ume  in  blackletter — and  give  the  required  answers 
without  money  and  without  price. 

I  am  indebted  to  a  friend  for  calling  my  attention 
to  an  incident  related  of  Daniel  Webster's  early  life, 
which  is  explained  by  the  above  anecdote.  When 
Prof.  Francis  Lieber  visited  Webster  in  1845,  Webster 
told  him  that,  when  he  was  a  lad  in  New  Hampshire, 
a  friend  of  his  father's  seriously  advised  him  (Daniel) 
to  become  a  sorcerer,  as  they  needed  one  to  recover 
stolen  cattle,  children,  etc. 

Mr.  Whittier  tells  some  amusing  stories  of  old  Aunt 
Morse  who  lived  at  Rocks  Village  near  Amesbury. 
He  says  that  one  of  his  earliest  recollections  is  of  this 
reputed  witch,  who  was  accused  of  preventing  the 
coming  of  the  butter  in  the  churn,  snuffing  out  can 
dles  at  huskings  and  quilting  parties,  and  even  of 
more  serious  injuries.  One  night,  he  says,  there  was 
a  husking  at  Rocks  Village,  and  about  the  middle  of 
the  evening  a  big  black  bug  came  buzzing  into  the 
room  and  kept  bumping  against  the  faces  of  the 
merry  huskers.  At  last  it  was  knocked  down  with  a 
stick  ;  and  about  the  same  time  Aunt  Morse,  who 
was  at  home,  fell  downstairs  and  got  covered  with 


l6  JOHN    G.    WHITTIER. 

bruises.  But  the  buskers  stoutly  affirmed  that  the 
black  bug  was  Aunt  Morse,  and  that  the  places  where 
she  was  bruised  were  where  she  had  been  struck  by 
the  stick.  A  certain  old  Captain  Peaslee  who  lived 
near  her  covered  his  house  and  barns  all  over  with 
horseshoes  to  ward  off  her  evil  influence.  She  at  last 
became  so  annoyed  by  this  silent  persecution  that 
she  went  to  a  justice  of  the  peace  and  took  oath  that 
she  was  a  Christian  woman  and  no  witch.1  But  it 
seems  that  her  undeserved  reputation  followed  her 
even  into  the  grave,  as  the  following  story  by  our 
poet — not  included  in  his  collected  works — will  show: 

"  After  the  death  of  Aunt  Morse  no  will  was  found,  though 
it  was  understood  before  her  decease  that  such  a  document 
was  in  the  hands  of  Squire  S.,  one  of  her  neighbors.  One  cold 
winter  evening,  some  weeks  after  her  departure,  Squire  S.  sat 
in  his  parlor,  looking  over  his  papers,  when,  hearing  some  one 
cough  in  a  familiar  way,  he  looked  up,  and  saw  before  him  a 
little  crooked  old  woman,  in  an  oil-nut  colored  woolen  frock, 
blue  and  white  tow  and  linen  apron,  and  striped  blanket,  lean 
ing  her  sharp,  pinched  face  on  one  hand,  while  the  other  sup 
ported  a  short  black  tobacco  pipe,  at  which  she  was  puffing  in 
the  most  vehement  and  spiteful  manner  conceivable. 

"  The  squire  was  a  man  of  some  nerve ;  but  his  first  thought 
was  to  attempt  an  escape,  from  which  he  was  deterred  only  by 
the  consideration  that  any  effort  to  that  effect  would  necessa 
rily  bring  him  nearer  to  his  unwelcome  visitor. 

" '  Aunt  Morse,'  he  said  at  length,  '  for  the  Lord's  sake,  get 


1  For  this  story  I  am  indebted  to  an  article  in  "  Harper's  Maga 
zine,"  February,  1883,  by  George  M1.  White.  Mr.  White  has, 
however,  got  "  Morse  "  somehow  changed  into  "  Mose."  I  here 
take  pleasure  in  acknowledging  my  obligations  to  the  same  writer 
for  several  other  interesting  anecdotes,  published  in  the  periodical 
just  mentioned. 


ON    THE    FARM.  Ij 

right  back  to  the  burying-ground  !     What  on  earth  are  you  here 
for?' 

"  The  apparition  took  her  pipe  deliberately  from  her  mouth, 
and  informed  him  that  she  came  to  see  justice  done  with  her 
will ;  and  that  nobody  need  think  of  cheating  her,  dead  or 
alive.  Concluding  her  remark  with  a  shrill  emphasis,  she  re 
placed  her  pipe,  and  puffed  away  with  renewed  vigor.  Upon 
the  squire's  promising  to  obey  her  request,  she  refilled  her 
pipe,  which  she  asked  him  to  light,  and  then  took  her  depart 
ure." 

The  first  of  the  Whittiers  to  come  to  America  was 
Thomas  Whittier,1  of  whom  two  noteworthy  inci 
dents  are  recorded, — first,  that  he  brought  with  him 
a  hive  of  bees  ;  and,  second,  that  he  declined  to  make 
use  of  the  garrison  house  of  Haverhill  as  a  defense 
against  the  Indians,  preferring  to  rely  on  kind  treat 
ment  of  them  and  on  faith  in  the  Lord.  John  Green- 
leaf  Whittier's  paternal  grandmother  was  of  the 
Greenleaf  family,  of  Newbury,  highly  respected  for 
integrity  of  character  and  religiousness  of  life.  It  is 
recorded  of  Prof.  Simon  Greenleaf,  professor  of  law 
at  Harvard  College,  1833-1845,  that  he  was  one  of  the 
most  spiritually-minded  of  men,  and  very  benevolent 
and  kind-hearted.  He  published  some  dozen  works. 
His  son  married  a  sister  of  the  poet  Longfellow.  One 
of  the  English  Greenleafs  took  part  with  the  Round 
heads  in  all  the  wars  of  the  English  Revolution  ; 
while  in  this  country  the  old  records  tell  of  a  Captain 
Stephen  Greenleaf,  of  Newbury,  who,  in  pursuing  a 
party  of  Indians  up  the  Merrimack  in  1695,  got  shot 


1  The  word  Whittier  is  a  corruption  of  white-tawier,  the  verb 
"  to  taw"  meaning  to  dress  the  lighter  skins  of  goats  and  kids, 
and  then  whiten  them  for  the  glover's  use. 
2 


l8  JOHN    G.    WHITTIER. 

in  the  wrist  and  side,  and  lost,  in  consequence,  the 
use  of  his  left  hand.  The  moose-skin  coat  he  wore  is 
still  preserved.  It  is  believed  that  the  Greenleafs  are 
of  Huguenot  descent,  and  that  their  name  has  been 
translated  from  the  French  Feuillevert. 

Whittier's  father  and  mother  were  both  of  Quaker 
stock,  and  were  themselves,  also,  it  is  needless  to  say, 
members  of  the  Society  of  Friends.  On  his  mother's 
side  the  poet  is  descended  from  the  Quaker  Husseys 
of  Somersworth  and  Hampton,  New  Hampshire,  and 
from  those  who  were  among  the  founders  of  Nan- 
tucket.  Through  his  mother  he  is  also  descended  from 
the  Rev.  Stephen  Batchelder  of  Hampton,  New  Hamp 
shire,  the  eccentric  parson,  noted  for  his  philoprogen- 
itiveness  and  for  his  wonderful  black  eyes,  bequeathed 
by  him  not  only  to  Whittier,  but  also  to  other  descend 
ants  of  his, — Daniel  Webster,  Caleb  Gushing,  Col. 
William  Batchelder  Greene,  and  William  Pitt  Fessen- 
den.  Stephen  Batchelder  also  gave  to  all  those  just 
mentioned  their  massive  features  and  swarthy,  Orien 
tal  complexions.  At  the  time  of  Daniel  Webster's 
subservient  Southern  tour,  Garrison  suggested  that 
his  complexion  might  have  caused  him  to  be  arrested 
as  a  runaway  slave  and  sold  to  pay  his  jail  fees. 

He  was  nicknamed  "  Black  Dan  "  ;  and  of  his  father, 
Captain  Webster,  it  was  humorously  said  that  burnt 
powder  could  not  change  his  complexion  in  battle. 
"The  Bachiler  eye"  is  dark  and  deep-set  under  heavy 
eye-brows,  inscrutable  in  depth,  now  shooting  out 
sudden  gleams  of  lightning,  and  now  suffused  with  the 
lambent  fire  of  tender  emotion.  Webster  was  known 
in  the  village  of  Fryeburg  as  "All-eyes  "  ;  one  speaks 
of  his  eye  as  being  as  black  as  death  and  as  heavy  as 


ON    THE    FARM.  ig 

a  lion's  ;  Carlyle,  as  in  all  his  portraits,  gives  one  01 
two  Velasquez-strokes,  and  behold  the  thing  done 
once  and  forever  !  Describing  Webster,  he  speaks  of 
"the  dull  black  eyes  under  the  precipice  of  brows, 
like  dull  anthracite  furnaces,  needing  only  to  be 
blown."  The  poet  Whittier's  glance  has  not  ordina 
rily  anything  of  that  indignation  which  Carlyle  noticed 
in  Webster,  though  beyond  a  doubt,  when  he  is 
aroused  by  injustice,  or  by  oppression  of  man  by  his 
fellow-man,  his  face  is  capable  of  expressing  (in  a 
momentary  flash)  the  fierce  scorn  and  righteous 
wrath  of  the  prophet. 

This  expression  is  caught  in  a  well-known  por 
trait  of  him  taken  during  the  anti-slavery  days.  Hav 
ing  once  seen  him,  one  can  well  understand  what  he 
himself  once  related, — how  that  when  some  rough 
fellows  threatened  him,  as  he  came  out  of  an  anti- 
slavery  meeting,  he  turned  and  faced  them,  and  so 
holding  their  eyes  went  out. 

The  family  life  of  the  Whittiers  on  the  old  farm 
was  made  delightful,  notwithstanding  the  hard  work, 
by  the  perpetual  cheerfulness,  humor,  and  wit,  and 
calm  and  trustful  piety  of  all  its  members.  The 
cheeriness  of  atmosphere  is  insisted  on  with  empha 
sis  by  all  acquaintances  of  the  family.  They  were 
not  poor  for  farmers  in  those  days,  although  they  had 
to  stretch  the  strap  pretty  hard,  and  "  pull  the  devil 
by  the  tail  "  pretty  vigorously,  in  order  to  make  both 
ends  meet.  The  farm  (bought  for  $600,  borrowed 
money)  yielded  nearly  every  article  of  food  consumed, 
as  well  as  the  flax  and  wool  spun  and  woven  by  the 
diligent  mother  into  cloth  for  their  home-made 


20  JOHN    G.    WHITTIER. 

clothes.  Yet  the  finances  of  the  household  did  not  per 
mit  the  owning  of  rich  robes  and  furs,  and  there  were 
no  ulsters  in  those  days,  and  warm  flannels  were  little 
worn,  so  that  our  young  poet  says  he  often  suffered 
bitterly  from  the  cold,  especially  in  those  long  drives 
to  the  Friends'  Meeting-House  eight  miles  away,  in 
Amesbury.  The  reading  matter  of  the  family  con 
sisted  of  a  few  religious  books,  the  almanac,  and  a 
local  weekly  newspaper.  In  Whittier's  boyhood  the 
whipping-post  and  stocks  were  still  to  be  seen  at 
Newburyport,  and  he  was  one  day  shown  in  Salem 
the  tree  on  which  the  witches  were  hanged.  People 
were  mostly  their  own  doctors  then.  If  a  tooth  was 
to  be  pulled,  you  must  go  either  to  a  physician  or  to 
a  horse-doctor.  I  have  been  told  of  a  horse-doctor 
down  East  who,  when  the  trembling  victim,  seated 
in  a  chair,  was  ruefully  eying  his  rude  instruments  of 
torture,  always  used  to  say  consolingly:  "  Don't  ye  be 
scared  now.  If  I  break  your  jah,  I  '11  give  ye  my 
oxen!  "  The  Whittiers  were  very  hospitable,  and 
the  little  farm-house  was  always  sought  by  Friends 
in  their  travels  to  and  from  the  annual  meetings  and 
conventions.  It  is  recorded  that  as  many  as  sixteen 
were  entertained  at  one  time.  Other  guests  less  wel 
come,  but  not  the  less  uniformly  provided  for,  were 
the  "  old  stragglers,"  as  they  called  them,  whose  visits 
were  so  regular  that  their  orbits  could  be  accurately 
calculated.  Speechless  beggars;  guasi-lame  beggars; 
bearded  herb-doctors;  peddlers  with  wild  hairy  faces 
peeping  from  under  enormous  packs;  an  old  Edie 
Ochiltree,  who  was  poet,  parson,  doctor,  and  mendi 
cant  in  one;  a  drunkard-parson;  horse-thief  beggars; 
fierce  and  well-bodied  gaberlunzies,  who  ordered  their 


ON    THE    FARM.  21 

cider  and  meat  with  terrifying  gestures  and  looks 
(when  the  "men-folks"  were  absent);  Italian  wan 
derers;  Scotch  strollers;  and  many  a  withered  bel 
dame  of  the  gipsy  fraternity, — they  were  all  sure  of 
a  nice  free  farmer's  luncheon  at  Quaker  Whycher's; 
for  very  rarely  would  the  too  kind-hearted  mother  turn 
one  away,  and,  if  she  did,  was  sure  afterwards  to  be 
smitten  with  remorse.  In  Mrs.  Emery's  recollections 
of  life  in  Newbury  we  get  a  glimpse  of  the  same  old 
stragglers.  She  tells  us,  for  example,  of  an  old  lame 
peddler  named  Urin,  who  used  to  stump  into  her 
father's  house,  usually  at  dusk,  with  his  bag  and 
basket,  and,  dropping  into  the  nearest  chair,  declare 
he  was  "  e'en  a'most  dead  "  he  was  so  lame  and  tired. 
Then,  without  stopping  to  take  breath,  he  would  reel 
off,  "  Tree  fell  on  me  when  I  was  a  boy,  killed  my 
brother  and  me  jest  like  him,  here's  books,  pins, 
needles,  black  sewing-silk  all  colors,  tapes,  varses, 
almanacks,  and  sarmons,  here  's  varses  on  the  pirate 
that  was  hung  on  Boston  Common,  the  'lection  sar- 
mon  when  the  guv'ner  took  the  chair,  '  Whittington's 
Cat,'  '  Pilgrim's  Progress,'  "  etc. 

Of  course  in  a  back-farm  neighborhood  on  the 
Merrimack  there  was  no  hint  in  those  early  days  of 
the  colonial  magnificence  of  old  Salem  and  Boston, 
or  even  of  Newburyport;  no  old-family  balls,  rich 
foreign  dresses,  gay  knee-buckled  gallants,  East  India 
punch-bowls,  mahogany  furniture,  or  stately  equi 
pages  or  costly  libraries.  And  especially  in  a  Quaker 
family  was  everything  of  the  plainest  and  severest. 
Carpets  were  unknown  As  a  substitute  the  floors 
were  from  time  to  time  scrubbed  or  strewn  with  fresh 
white  sand.  They  must  have  had  stout  nerves  in  those 


22  JOHN    G.    WHITTIER. 

days  to  endure  the  gritting  and  grating  of  sand  under 
their  feet.  When  the  old  Holmes  manse  was  being 
torn  down  in  Cambridge,  I  remember  noticing  that 
the  foot-deep  spaces  between  the  joists  underneath 
the  floor  of  one  upstairs  room  were  completely  filled 
with  white  sand  that  had  for  generations  sifted 
through  the  cracks.  It  is  to  be  understood  that  the 
great  kitchen  fireplace  formed  the  magnet  of  the 
farm-house,  and  around  it  on  winter  evenings  clus 
tered  all  the  poetry  of  the  young  people's  life.  Here 
the  nuts  were  cracked,  the  cider  was  drunk,  the  axe- 
handle  whittled  out,  stockings  knit  and  stories  told; 
and  not  a  boy  or  a  man  but  was  familiar  with  the 
mysteries  of  green  back-log,  dry  back-stick,  fore- 
stick,  split-wood,  cat-stick,  and  kindling-chips;  and, 
particularly  in  prosaic  Quaker  Whittier's  house,  to 
understand  how  successfully  to  build  the  kitchen  fire 
was  considered  of  vastly  more  importance  than  to 
know  how  to  build  the  lofty  rhyme. 

Then  there  were  frequent  nutting  expeditions,  fish 
ings,  flower-gatherings,  quilting  parties,  and  husking 
bees,  when — 

"  We  laughed  round  the  corn-heap,  with  hearts  all  in  tune, 
Our  chair  a  broad  pumpkin, — our  lantern  the  moon," 

as  Whittier  sings.  And  good  Aunt  Mercy,  the 
mother's  sister,  in  her  spotless  Quaker  cap, — what 
absolutely  de-licious  pumpkin  pies  she  used  to 
make  !  "  None  sweeter  or  better  e'er  smoked  from 
an  oven  or  circled  a  platter  !  " 

"  O  fruit  loved  of  boyhood  !  the  old  days  recalling, 

When  wood-grapes  were  purpling  and  brown  nuts  were  falling  ! 


ON    THE    FARM.  23 

What  moistens  the  lip  and  what  brightens  the  eye, 
What  calls  back  the  past,  like  the  rich  pumpkin  pie  ?  " 

—Whittier. 

On  First-days  the  old  one-horse  shay  was  got  out, 
and  father  and  mother  drove  off  to  meeting,  some 
times  taking  one  of  the  children  with  them.  There, 
while  their  Puritan  neighbors  were  wrestling  with 
the  "  long  nineteenthlies  poured  downward  from  the 
sounding-board,"  they  sat  in  silence,  worshiping  God 
often  with  the  heart  alone.  As  for  John  Greenleaf, 
he  says  he  thinks  he  generally  preferred  to  worship  in 
the  fields  in  those  days,  being  in  this  respect  like  his 
Quaker  friend  Mary  Howitt,  who  says  in  her  recently 
published  autobiography  that  the  only  thing  she 
enjoyed  in  the  horribly  plain  old  meeting-house 
of  her  childhood  was  looking  at  the  reflection  of 
certain  windows  in  a  certain  other  window,  and 
imagining  that  the  reflected  ones  were  the  windows 
of  heaven.  Sabbath  afternoons  the  mother  gathered 
her  children  about  her,  like  the  good  man  in  the 
"  Cotter's  Saturday  Night,"  and  read  and  expounded 
a  portion  of  Scripture.  It  was  in  order  to  be  nearer 
the  little  Friends'  "  Meeting"  that  she  removed  to 
Amesbury  after  the  death  of  her  husband  and  the  sale 
of  the  farm  in  1840.  A  beautiful  character — the  mother; 
serene,  dignified,  benign,  practical,  and  fond  of  reading 
the  best  books.  A  neighbor,  speaking  of  her  natural 
refinement,  says  that  whenever  she  saw  him  she  always 
politely  inquired  for  the  health  of  himself  and 
mother  :  "  How  do  thee  do,  Charles  ? — and  how  is 
thy  mother?"1  Mrs.  Whittier  died  in  1857  at 
Amesbury,  the  tender  and  intimate  relation  between 


Underwood's  "  Whittier,"  p.  48. 


24  JOHN    G.    WHITTIER. 

herself  and  her  poet-son  having  never  been  in  the 
least  degree  weakened.  To  such  a  mother  a  son 
owes  more  than  can  be  expressed.  An  excellent 
picture  of  her  is  given  in  Mr.  Francis  H.  Underwood's 
careful  work  on  Whittier,  and  an  oil-portrait  hangs 
in  the  little  parlor  at  Amesbury. 

John  Whittier,  the  father  of  the  poet  (or  "  Quaker 
Whycher,"  as  he  was  called  by  some  of  his  neigh 
bors),  was  a  rough,  decisive,  but  kind-hearted  and 
devout  man.  He  was  several  times  in  the  public 
service  of  the  town  of  Haverhill  (selectman,  e.  g.), 
and  was  intimate  with  its  prominent  men,  such  as 
the  Minots,  the  Wingates,  and  the  Bartletts.  He  was 
often  called  upon  to  act  as  arbitrator  in  matters  of 
dispute  between  neighbors.  He  is  included  in  the 
portrait  gallery  in  "  Snow-Bound."  He  married 
Abigail  Hussey  when  he  was  forty-four,  and  John 
Greenleaf,  their  second  child,  was  born  three  years 
later.  The  father  died  in  1832,  tenderly  cared  for  to 
the  last  by  his  children. 

Mr.  Whittier's  only  brother,  Matthew  Franklin 
Whittier,  was  for  many  years  a  resident  of  Boston. 
His  humorous  verses  and  satirical  dialect  articles, 
signed  "  Ethan  Spike,  from  Hornby,"  were  mostly 
contributed  to  the  Portland  "  Transcript,"  but  some 
of  them  to  Boston  papers.  I  should  not  advise  any 
one  to  take  the  trouble  to  hunt  them  up.  They  prove 
incontestably  that  but  one  genius  is  born  in  a  family. 
Matthew  died  at  the  age  of  seventy,  at  the  Maverick 
House  in  East  Boston,  January  7,  1883,  after  a  long 
and  painful  illness,  leaving  a  wife  and  three  children, 
and  grandchildren.  Until  a  few  months  before  his 
death  he  had  been  a  clerk  in  the  Naval  Department 


ON    THE    FARM  25 

of  the  Boston  Custom  House, — his  service  covering  a 
period  of  thirteen  years, — and  his  retirement  was 
made  the  occasion  of  a  formal  testimonial  of  esteem 
from  his  fellow-clerks,  among  whom  he  was  very 
popular  for  his  cheery  humor.  He  is  described  as 
having  been  "  very  different  from  his  brother,"  in 
many  characteristics.  He  did  not  use  the  Quaker 
mode  of  speech, — its  "  thee's "  and  "thou's."  He 
was  an  omnivorous  reader,  and,  like  his  brother,  an 
out-and-out  anti-slavery  man.  He  was  associated 
with  B.  P.  Shillaber  in  the  attempt  to  float  that 
unfortunate  journalistic  craft,  the  "Carpet  Bag." 
He  resided  for  many  years  in  Portland,  where  he  was 
book-keeper  for  certain  mercantile  houses,  and 
where  he  married  Miss  Jane  Vaughn.  "  Frank,''  as 
his  associates  called  him,  was,  like  his  brother, 
inclined  to  seclusion,  yet  had  the  same  geniality  and 
quaint,  quiet  humor.  Mr.  Charles  O.  Stickney  J  once 
asked  him  of  his  relation  to  his  brother  the  poet. 
"  *  The  only  relationship  existing  between  John 
Greenleaf  Whittier  and  myself,'  said  he,  in  solemn 
deliberative  tones,  *  is,  we  each  had  the  same  father 
and  the  same  mother.'" 

Aunt  Mercy  was  a  person  of  great  sweetness  and 
refinement  of  nature  and  of  a  playful  disposition. 
She  removed  with  the  family  to  Amesbury,  and  died 
there  in  1846.  She  was  betrothed  in  her  youth,  says 
Mr.  S.  T.  Pickard,2  to  a  young  man  every  way 

1  Inthe  Boston  "  Evening  Transcript,"  January  2,  1892,  where  a 
specimen  of  Ethan  Spike's  comic  writing  is  given,  with  references. 

2  In  the  Portland  "  Transcript."    Mr.  Pickard's  wife  is  Whittier's 
niece,  and  Mr.   Pickard  himself  is  the  nephew  of  Joshua  Coffin, 
Whittier's  old  schoolmaster. 


26  JOHN    G.    WHITTIER. 

worthy  of  her,  but  not  a  member  of  the  Friends' 
society.  Late  one  evening,  as  she  sat  musing  by  the 
fire,  after  all  the  rest  had  gone  to  bed,  she  felt 
mysteriously  impelled  to  go  to  the  window  and  look 
out,  and  in  a  moonlit  space  under  the  trees  she 
saw  a  horse  and  rider  coming  down  the  hill  toward 
the  house.  She  recognized  her  lover.  He  drew  rein 
at  the  yard  entrance,  and  she  went  out  at  once  to 
meet  him.  While  she  was  unbolting  the  door  in  the 
little  porch,  she  happened  to  turn  her  head  to  look 
out  of  the  window  opposite  her,  and  plainly  saw  her 
lover  on  his  horse  ;  but,  when  the  door  was  opened, 
no  trace  of  man  or  horse  was  to  be  seen.  Bursting 
into  tears,  she  called  up  Mrs.  Whittier,  and  told  her 
story.  Her  sister  said,  "  Thee  had  better  go  to  bed, 
Mercy  ;  thee  has  been  asleep  and  dreaming  by  the 
fire."  But  Mercy  was  sure  she  had  not  been  asleep  ; 
and,  in  afterwards  recalling  the  circumstances  of  the 
vision,  she  remembered  that  she  had  heard  no  sound  of 
hoofs.  Some  time  after  she  received  a  letter  from  a 
distant  city,  stating  that  her  lover  had  died  on 
the  very  day  and  hour  of  her  ghostly  visitation  ! 
This  is  the  story  of  Aunt  Mercy,  as  told  in  the 
family. 

Whittier's  elder  sister,  Mary,  married  Mr.  Jacob 
Caldwell,  at  one  time  publisher  of  the  Haverhill 
"  Gazette."  She  died  in  1861. 

A  member  of  the  household  who  was  beloved  by 
all  the  children  was  Uncle  Moses  Whittier,  "  innocent 
of  books,  but  rich  in  lore  of  fields  and  brooks," — a 
sort  of  Rollo-book  Jonas,  "  a  tall,  plain,  sober  man," 
far  less  stout  than  the  father  of  the  household.  His 
portrait,  like  that  of  all  the  others,  is  drawn  in 


ON    THE    FARM.  27 

"Snow-Bound."  His  tragic  death  in  1824  has  often 
been  mentioned  by  writers  on  Whittier.  He  had 
gone  out  in  the  morning  with  his  axe  to  cut  wood, 
turning  into  a  path  on  the  right  of  the  Haverhill  road. 
He  was  missed  at  dinner  time,  and  presently  his  dog 
came  up  to  the  house  barking  frantically,  and  then 
off  again  to  the  woods.  The  unfortunate  man  was 
found  under  a  fallen  tree.  In  attempting  to  get  to 
the  ground  a  lodged  tree  he  had  cut,  he  felled  the 
one  on  which  it  rested,  and  the  two  dropping  at  the 
same  time,  and  taking  unexpected  directions,  he  was 
caught  and  pinned  to  the  ground  by  one  of  them. 
He  lived  but  a  short  time  after  being  taken  home, 
and  was  buried  on  a  bitter  winter's  day  in  the  little 
family  burial-lot  a  few  rods  from  the  house. 

Of  the  poet's  sister,  Elizabeth,  it  seems  almost  pro 
fanation  to  speak  at  all,  so  sacred  was  the  bond 
between  the  two.  Yet  a  few  words  may  help  readers 
of  her  poems,  "  Hazel  Blossoms,"  to  enjoy  them 
better.  She  was  her  brother's  intellectual  com 
panion,  his  critic  and  his  guardian  angel  both,  and  a 
co-worker  with  him  in  the  cause  of  the  slave.  When 
in  good  health,  she  is  said  to  have  been  gay-hearted. 
Her  Batchelder  eyes  were  large  and  wondrous  deep, 
looking  from  under  a  broad,  noble  brow.  The  crayon 
sketch  of  her  face  in  the  Amesbury  parlor  wears  a 
smile  of  sweetness  and  patience.  She  had  a  vivid 
imagination,  and  was  a  delightful  story-teller.  Says 
an  acquaintance  of  hers,  "  She  sometimes  visited 
at  my  father's  house,  and  all  of  us  children  used  to 
climb  upon  the  bed  of  an  invalid  sister  and  listen, 
rapt,  to  Elizabeth,  who,  sitting  at  the  foot,  told  us 
stories  by  the  hour."  Says  Mrs.  Harriet  Prescott 


28  JOHN    G.    WHITTIER. 

Spofford:1  "Mr.  Whittier's  sister  Elizabeth,  sym 
pathizing  with  him  completely,  of  a  rare  poetic 
nature  and  fastidious  taste,  and  of  delicate  dark-eyed 
beauty,  was  long  a  companion  that  must  have  made 
the  want  of  any  other  less  keenly  felt  than  by  lonely 
men  in  general.  The  bond  between  the  sister  and 
brother  was  more  perfect  than  any  of  which  we  have 
known,  except  that  between  Charles  and  Mary 
Lamb;  and  in  this  instance  the  conditions  were  of 
perfect  moral  and  mental  health.  To  the  precious- 
ness  of  the  relationship  the  pages  of  the  poet  bear 
constant  witness,  and  Amesbury  Village  is  full  of 
traditions  of  their  affection,  and  of  the  gentle  loveli 
ness  and  brilliant  wit  of  Elizabeth,  whom  the  people 
admired  and  reverenced  almost  as  much  as  they  do 
the  poet  himself."  At  the  time  of  her  death  in  1864 
a  Newburyport  paper  said:  "The  tidings  of  the 
death  of  Elizabeth  Whittier  went  to  the  hearts  of 
many  in  this  community  with  a  pang  like  that  of 
personal  loss.  Regard  for  the  delicacy  of  a  nature 
that  held  itself  shrinkingly  aloof  from  publicity  for 
bids  more  than  a  passing  tribute  to  its  rare  loveli 
ness."  Miss  Whittier  had  been  a  semi-invalid  for 
some  years,  and  for  a  few  months  before  her  death 
her  sufferings  were  extreme. 

Perhaps  one  should  not  take  leave  of  the  house 
hold  of  "  Snow-Bound  "  without  a  few  words  on  the 
"  not  unfeared,  half-welcome  guest,"  whose  portrait  is 
so  well  drawn  by  Whittier, — namely,  the  self-styled 
pilgrim-stranger  with  a  violent  temper,  the  half- 


1  In  a  valuable  article  in  "  Harper's   Magazine  "  for  January, 
1884,  to  which  I  am  indebted  for  facts  used  in  this  volume. 


ON    THE    FARM.  29 

crazy  religious  enthusiast  and  evangelist,  Harriet 
Livermore  : — 

"  She  blended  in  a  like  degree 
The  vixen  and  the  devotee, 
Revealing  with  each  freak  or  feint 

The  temper  of  Petruchio's  Kate, 
The  raptures  of  Siena's  saint. 
Her  tapering  hand  and  rounded  wrist 
Had  facile  power  to  form  a  fist ; 
The  warm  dark  languish  of  her  eyes 
Was  never  safe  from  wrath's  surprise." 

In  1884  a  distant  kinsman  of  Harriet  Livermore 
(the  Rev.  S.  T.  Livermore  of  Bridgewater,  Massachu 
setts)  published  a  little  book  about  her,  as  a  vindica 
tion  of  her  character  from  what  he  morbidly  conceives 
to  be  the  distorted  account  given  by  Mr.  Whittier 
in  "  Snow-Bound. "  He  calls  the  "  epithets  heaped 
upon  her  "  in  that  poem  "  an  assault  upon  a  pious 
female's  character,"  and  the  portrait  of  her  4<  a  cruel 
caricature,"  and  hints  that  he  would  like  to  use  the 
"  flexors  and  extensors  of  his  right  arm  in  her  protec 
tion."  The  item  about  her  visiting  Lady  Hester 
Stanhope  in  Palestine,  and 

"  Startling  on  her  desert  throne 
The  crazy  Queen  of  Lebanon 
With  claims  fantastic  as  her  own," 

he  pronounces  to  be  "  a  slanderous  myth, "and  quotes 
Missionary  Thompson,  author  of  "  The  Land  and  the 
Book,"  as  saying  that  the  statement  of  the  person 
who  informed  Mr.  Whittier  that  Harriet  Livermore 
was  at  one  time  head  of  a  Bedouin  tribe  "  is  a  lie." 

We  shall,  further  on,  find  the  Rev.  Mr.  Livermore 
attempting  to  whitewash  the  Ethiopian  skins  of  the 


30  JOHN    G.    WHITTIER. 

old  Block  Island  wreckers.  A  good  strong  infusion 
of  positive  wickedness,  sparkling  at  the  eyes,  is  his 
abhorrence,  and  rightly  so  in  real  life.  The  poet, 
too,  abhors  it.  But  the  antithesis  of  right  and 
wrong,  light  and  darkness,  is  needed  in  art.  That  it 
furnishes  the  dramatic  contrast  and  shading  indis 
pensable  to  a  poet  is  no  concern  of  Mr.  Livermore's, 
he  thinks,  and  he  indignantly  asks  why  we  are  not 
presented  with  a  list  of  Harriet  Livermore's  virtues. 
It  is  curious  that  nearly  every  authority  brought  into 
court  by  him  to  prove  his  fanatical  female  relative  a 
saint  only  serves  to  fix  more  ineffaceably  the  colors 
of  Whittier's  portrait  of  her.  He  entirely  ignores, 
also,  the  benignant  spirit  of  the  poet,  who  adds  to 
his  sketch  twenty-seven  lines  of  charitable  excuses 
for  her  failings: — 

"  Where'er  her  troubled  path  may  be, 

The  Lord's  sweet  pity  with  her  go ! 
The  outward  wayward  life  we  see ; 

The  hidden  springs  we  may  not  know. 
Nor  is  it  given  us  to  discern 

What  threads  the  fatal  sisters  spun, 

Through  what  ancestral  years  has  run 
The  sorrow  with  the  woman  born,"  etc. 

The  following  interesting  letter  by   Mr.  Whittier 
was  written  in  answer  to  inquiries  on  the  subject:  '— 

DANVERS,  MASS.,  9th  mo.,  18,  1879. 

DEAR  FRIEND, — Harriet   Livermore,  when  I  was  a  young 
boy,  was  for  some  considerable  time  a  resident  of  Rocks  Vil- 


1  Livermore's  "  Harriet  Livermore,"  p.  15.  Another  good 
authority  on  Harriet  Livermore  is  the  booklet  of  Miss  Rebecca  I. 
Davis,  of  East  Haverhill. 


ON    THE    FARM.  31 

lage,  Haverhill ;  I  think  a  visitor  of  Dr.  Weld's  in  that  place, 
and  was  often  at  our  house — a  brilliant,  dark-eyed  woman — 
striking  in  her  personal  appearance  and  gifted  in  conversation. 
The  tradition  of  her  disappointment  [in  love]  was  current  in 
our  neighborhood,  and  the  name  of  the  gentleman  was  Dr. 
Elliot,  of  the  U.  S.  Army,  who,  I  think,  died  in  Florida,  or  in 
some  part  of  the  extreme  South.  He  was  Haverhill  born. 

After  boyhood  I  never  saw  her  until  she  came  to  see  me  at 
Philadelphia,  on  her  return  from  the  East,  in  1829  [1839].  I 
interested  myself  with  J.  R.  Chandler,  and  others,  to  get  an 
audience  for  two  lectures  by  her.  She  gave  one,  and  declined 
to  give  the  other  because  the  audience  was  smaller  than  the 
first.  She  spent  some  days  at  my  boarding-house,  alternating 
from  an  agreeable  and  interesting  guest  to  a  violent-tempered 
woman  of  indomitable  will.  She  told  us  of  her  stay  with  Lady 
Hester  Stanhope,  and  that  Lady  H.  S.  kept  two  white  horses 
with  a  red  mark  on  the  back  of  each  in  the  shape  of  a  saddle, 
ready  waiting  for  the  coming  of  the  Lord — one  of  them  to  be 
ridden  by  herself  to  Jerusalem.  It  seems  that  H.  L.  insisted 
that  she  was  to  accompany  the  Lord  on  the  spare  horse  ;  and 
therefore  a  quarrel  arose  which  ended  in  their  separation. 

The  lecture  procured  her,  I  believe,  about  $150.  She  said 
she  must  go  back  to  Jerusalem  and  meet  the  coming  there. 
Even  then  she  was  a  noble-looking  woman. 

A  friend  of  mine,  years  afterwards,  met  her  in  Syria,  with  a 
fragment  of  a  Bedouin  tribe,  of  which  she  was  the  head — its 
spiritual  and  temporal  chief.  I  do  not  think  I  have  exaggerated 
her  character  in  "  Snow-Bound."  I  certainly  did  not  intend  to. 

Thy  friend, 

JOHN  G.  WHITTIER. 

It  is  not  desirable  to  go  minutely  into  the  story  of 
Harriet  Livermore's  life  here, — of  her  early  education 
by  her  father,  the  Hon.  Edward  St.  Loe  Livermore, 
judge  and  United  States  Senator ;  of  her  dis 
appointment  in  love  ;  her  temper  ;  her  teaching  in 


32  JOHN    G.    WHITTIER. 

the  Whittier  neighborhood  ;  her  authorship  of  relig 
ious  books  ;  or  how  she  charmed  the  social  circles 
of  Washington  by  her  beauty  and  brilliancy,  and, 
later,  when  an  evangelist,  preached  in  the  House  of 
Representatives  with  such  eloquence  that  many  were 
moved  to  tears  and  sobs.  Her  portrait  shows  an  ex 
quisitely  moulded  face,  and  wide,  wild  eyes,  though 
it  does  not  show  the  wealth  of  moist  raven-black  hair 
which  once  adorned  her  head.  At  one  time  she  had 
a  crazy  notion  of  preaching  to  the  Indians,  and 
actually  made  her  way  as  far  as  Fort  Leavenworth, — 
as  she  says,  "  urging  her  way  to  the  West,  undis 
mayed  by  cholera,  sand-bars,  or  floating  timbers, 
commissioners,  or  the  Devil."  Here  is  a  stanza  of  a 
hymn  she  wrote  for  her  imaginary  Indians  : — 

"  I'll  tell  them  whiskey  to  forsake, 
Crying  'tis  Satan's  bait  to  kill. 
Oh,  Choctaw,  Cherokee,  come  take 
Pure  water  from  the  forest  rill !  " 

She  made  four  or  five  trips  to  Jerusalem,  the  first 
in  1836.  In  1841  she  was  living  in  part  of  a  house 
owned  by  a  Gibraltar  Jew,  near  Hezekiah's  Pool. 
She  was  given  food  by  the  Protestant  missionaries. 
Dr.  Selah  Merrill,  American  Consul  in  Jerusalem  in 
1883  (who  got  his  information  from  those  who  had 
known  her  there),  wrote  that  "  she  was  very  irritable 
and  exacting,  and  would  often  insult  people  in  their 
houses  or  in  the  streets."  She  was  well  known  to  be 
crack-brained,  and  was  not  allowed  to  preach  in 
Jerusalem.  Dr.  Van  Dyke,  who  was  living  in  Jeru 
salem,  says  she  told  him  one  day  that  she  had  spent 
the  previous  Sunday  in  an  olive-tree  on  the  Mount  of 
Olives.  She  also  thought  that  she  and  Joseph  Wolff 


ON    THE    FARM.  33 

were  the  two  witnesses  of  Revelation  xi.,  and  identi 
fied  Bonaparte  with  Mehemet  AH. 

Mr.  Livermore's  attempt  to  discredit  the  statement 
of  Mr.  Whittier  as  to  the  Lady  Hester  Stanhope  story 
is  not  at  all  successful.  It  all  reduces  to  this  :  she 
could  not  have  visited  that  lady,  he  thinks,  because 
she  was  in  Palestine  only  a  month  on  the  occasion  of 
her  first  trip.  But  this  is  no  argument.  Lady  Hester 
lived  only  eight  miles  from  Sidon,  in  her  mountain 
villa  of  Djoun,  and  Mr.  Livermore  admits  that  the 
American  pilgrim  passed  through  Sidon,  either  on 
her  journey  to  Jerusalem  or  on  her  return  to  take 
ship  at  Beirut.  A  day  or  two  at  Djoun  would  have 
afforded  more  than  sufficient  opportunity  for  these 
two  half-crazy  and  high-stomached  dames  to  see  that 
they  could  not  dwell  under  the  same  roof.  Dr.  Van 
Dyke  says  he  would  have  given  his  little  finger  to 
have  witnessed  the  meeting  between  the  two,  although 
he  does  not  think  they  did  actually  meet.  "  It  would 
have  been  diamond  cut  diamond, — the  haughty 
aristocratic  Englishwoman  and  the  fearless  re 
publican."  The  truth  of  the  incident  is  attested  by 
Mr.  Whittier,  by  a  Mr.  Thomas,  who  knew  Miss 
Livermore  for  years  in  Philadelphia,1  and  by  another 
old  acquaintance,  who  wrote  an  article  on  her  for  a 
Philadelphia  paper  at  the  time  of  her  death  in  1867. 

Lady  Stanhope  was  a  niece  of  Pitt,  the  English 
Minister,  and  at  his  death  she  received  a  government 
pension  of  ;£i, 200  annually.  She  died  in  Syria  in  1839. 
She  inherited  her  wayward  and  imperious  disposition 
from  her  father.  Her  life,  as  revealed  in  her  Mem 
oirs  and  Travels,  was  certainly  one  of  the  most 

1  See  S.  T.  Livermore's  book,  p.  82. 
3 


34  JOHN    G.    WHITTIER. 

romantic  and  eccentric  ever  lived  by  mortal.  She 
was  withal  benevolent  in  disposition,  and  often  saved 
the  lives  of  fugitives  in  Syria.  She  had  a  stronger 
character  and  a  more  versatile  mind  than  had  Harriet 
Livermore.  Her  special  hobby  was  her  belief  in  the 
coming  of  a  Messiah  and  the  ride  to  Jerusalem  on 
her  pet  mares  ;  and  we  may  be  sure  that  any 
audacious  handling  of  that  theme  by  the  pilgrim- 
saint  would  have  caused  instant  rupture  of  all  rela 
tions  between  them.  A  physician  who  was  Lady 
Stanhope's  most  trusted  friend,  who  lived  with  her 
at  Djoun,  and  compiled  the  volumes  of  her  Mem 
oirs,  gives  a  description  of  the  famous  mares  ;  but 
neither  he  nor  Dr.  Wm.  M.  Thompson,  who,  after  her 
death,  went  up  to  bury  her,  and  saw  the  favored 
animals,  says  anything  about  the  red  spots  like 
saddles  which  are  mentioned  by  Mr.  Whittier  in  his 
note.  Neither  was  their  color  white,  as  Mr.  Whittier 
states. 

It  appears  from  the  Memoirs  that  a  village  doctor 
named  Meta,  on  Mt.  Lebanon,  predicted  that  on  the 
coming  of  the  "  Mahedi  "  he  would  ride  a  horse  born 
saddled,  and  that  "  a  woman  would  come  from  a  far 
country  to  partake  in  the  mission."  (This  explains 
how  Harriet  Livermore,  as  well  as  Lady  Hester, 
could  plausibly  lay  claim  to  horse  number  two.) 
Dr.  Thompson,  in  "  The  Land  and  the  Book "  (i. 
113),  thus  speaks  of  these  wondrous  steeds,  com 
pared  with  which  the  mares  of  Diomed,  or  that 
Persian  horse  of  brass  on  which  the  Tartar  king 
did  ride,  were  naught  in  the  eyes  of  Lady  Hester  : — 

"  She  had  a  mare  whose  backbone  sank  suddenly 
down  at  the  shoulders  and  rose  abruptly  near  the 


ON    THE    FARM.  35 

hips.  This  deformity  her  vivid  imagination  con 
verted  into  a  miraculous  saddle,  on  which  she  was  to 
ride  to  Jerusalem  as  queen  by  the  side  of  some  sort 
of  Messiah,  who  was  to  introduce  a  fancied  millen 
nium.  Another  mare  had  a  part  to  play  in  this  august 
pageant,  and  both  were  tended  with  extraordinary 
care.  A  lamp  was  kept  burning  in  their  very  comforta 
ble  apartments,  and  they  were  served  with  sherbet  and 
other  delicacies."  She  lavished  her  choicest  affections 
on  them  for  fourteen  years. 

She  never  suffered  any  one  to  mount  them.  The 
hollow-backed  one  was  a  chestnut,  named  Laila,  and 
the  other,  Lulu,  was  a  gray.  They  had  each  a  groom, 
and  were  daily  exercised  on  a  green  plot  of  ground  near 
the  house-wall.  No  servant  was  even  allowed  to  look 
at  them  while  they  were  at  exercise,  on  pain  of  being 
dismissed  from  her  service.  She  once  said  that  in 
her  pecuniary  trouble  she  would  have  quitted  the 
country,  had  it  not  been  for  these  mares  and  her 
desire  to  remain  and  see  the  outcome  of  the  prophecy. 
After  her  death,  the  poor  creatures  were  soon  worked 
to  death  by  the  rapacious  villagers. 

There  can  scarcely  be  a  doubt  that  the  statement 
made  to  Mr.  Whittier  and  repeated  in  the  latest  edi 
tion  of  "  Snow-Bound"  (1888)— that  Harriet  Liver- 
more  was  at  one  time  the  spiritual  and  temporal  head 
of  a  fragment  of  a  Bedouin  tribe — is  a  mistake.  A 
poor  and  obscure  fanatic,  living  almost  wholly  upon 
charity  in  Jerusalem,  would  not  have  been  accepted 
by  Arabs  as  their  chief.  This  might  have  happened 
if  she  had  had  abundance  of  money  and  power,  like 
Lady  Stanhope,  but  not  otherwise.  Dr.  Thompson, 
with  whom  she  lived  for  a  time,  denies  the  story  in 


36  JOHN    G.    WHITTIER. 

toto,  as  we  have  seen.  Still,  there  might  have  been  a 
slight  basis  of  fact  for  it, — some  momentary  freak  of 
hers,  like  that  attempt  to  take  up  her  life  among  the 
American  Indians. 

We  may  now  give  a  glance  at  the  outward  sur 
roundings  of  Whittier  when  a  boy  on  the  farm.  In  a 
brief  autobiographic  paper,  he  relates  that  from  the 
top  of  "  Job's  Hill,"  which  rose  abruptly  from  the 
brook  that  passed  the  house,  he  could  see  the  blue 
outline  of  the  Deerfield  mountains  in  New  Hamp 
shire,  and  the  solitary  peak  of  Agamenticus  on  the 
coast  of  Maine.  The  valley  of  the  Merrimack  could 
be  traced  by  a  long  line  of  morning  mist,  and  on  the 
breeze  was  borne  from  the  village  of  Haverhill  the 
sound  of  its  two  church  bells.  The  view  of  the  house 
from  the  road  was  once  obscured  by  oak  woods. 
Not  far  away,  on  the  cross-road  stood  one  of  those  old 
garrison  houses  which  were  formerly  established  in 
New  England  towns  for  protection  against  the  Indians. 
Sometimes  private  houses  were  fortified  and  made  to 
serve  as  garrisons.  Such  was  the  one  near  the  Whit- 
tier  farm.  I  condense  two  separate  accounts  given  of 
it  by  Mr.  Whittier, — one  in  "  Harper's  Magazine  "  and 
the  other  in  his  prose  works.  It  was,  says  he,  a 
massive,  venerable  structure,  built  of  solid  oak  logs, 
with  the  walls  double,  and  filled  in  with  bricks  be 
tween.  There  was  a  double-thick  plank  door,  made 
bullet-proof  and  studded  with  iron  nails.  Over  the 
door  and  projecting  from  the  second  story  was  a 
species  of  balcony,  also  of  thick  planks,  with  a  bullet 
proof  breastwork  around  it,  through  which  were  cut 
loopholes,  so  that  the  defenders  could  creep  from  the 


ON    THE    FARM.  37 

interior  of  the  house  and  fire  down  upon  those  who 
might  be  about  the  door.  The  windows  were  nar 
row,  and  had  small  diamond-shaped  panes,  set  in 
lead.  The  door  opened  upon  a  stone-paved  hall,  or 
entry,  leading  into  the  huge  single  room  of  the  base 
ment,  which  was  lighted  by  two  small  windows,  the 
ceiling  black  with  the  smoke  of  a  century  and  a  half, 
a  huge  fireplace,  calculated  for  eight-foot  wood,  occu 
pying  one  entire  side  ;  while  overhead,  suspended 
from  the  timbers,  or  on  shelves  fastened  to  them, 
were  household  stores,  farming  utensils,  fishing-rods, 
guns,  bunches  of  herbs  gathered  perhaps  a  century 
ago,  strings  of  dried  apples  and  pumpkins,  links  of 
mottled  sausages,  spareribs  and  flitches  of  bacon,  the 
firelight  of  an  evening  dimly  revealing  the  checked 
woolen  coverlet  of  the  bed  in  one  far-off  corner, 
while  in  another  shone  the  pewter  plates  on  the 
dresser. 

This  old  relic  was  destroyed  some  years  ago, — 
more  's  the  pity,  for  it  showed  not  the  least  sign  of 
decay,  and  would  have  been  a  thing  of  joy  unspeak 
able  to  antiquaries. 

The  birthplace  of  a  man  of  genius  is  always  worth 
looking  at,  but  is  not  so  interesting  as  are  the  lares  et 
penates  of  his  later  years.  It  is  not  worth  while  to 
gaze  with  rapture  into  the  empty  husk  of  the  nut: 
the  kernel  is  the  essential  thing.  Nevertheless,  a 
word  once  again  on  the  old  Quaker  grange  where  the 
best  friend  of  the  slave  passed  his  boyhood.  I  sup 
pose  among  those  whose  forbears  were  the  original 
settlers  of  New  England  one  could  count  upon  the 
fingers  of  both  hands  the  persons  who,  like  Whittier, 
lived  until  manhood  in  the  house  built  by  the  founder 


38  JOHN    G.    WHITTIER. 

of  their  family  in  the  New  World.  The  old  home  at 
Haverhill  is  over  two  hundred  years  old.  It  is  a 
severely  plain,  not  to  say  ugly,  old  two-story  box, 
the  rooms,  like  those  of  so  many  other  similar  houses 
in  New  England  (Thoreau's  birthplace,  for  example), 
having  heavy  beams  running  across  the  ceilings, 
which  are  so  low  as  to  be  easily  touched.  The  front 
door  opens  into  a  small,  square  entry,  with  steep 
staircase.  On  the  right  is  the  room  where  Whitlier 
used  to  study, — the  salon  of  the  old  grange.  Here  he 
used  to  sit  by  a  bright  wood  fire, — the  fireplace  being 
the  one  luxury  he  has  always  allowed  himself, — ab 
sorbed  in  the  books  and  newspapers  that  covered  a 
little  table  in  the  centre  of  the  ropm.  A  neighbor  says 
that  he  was  a  great  reader :  "  He  used  to  load  me 
down  with  papers  for  my  father  to  read;  he  was  as 
good  as  a  library."  In  the  room  on  the  opposite  side 
of  the  entry  Whittier  was  born.  In  the  rear  is  the 
kitchen,  with  its  enormous  Old  World  fireplace,  broad 
enough  to  admit  benches  on  each  side,  and  with 
accessories  of  brick  oven  and  mantel-piece;  here  is  the 
inset  cupboard  where  shone  the  pewter  dishes;  and 
here  yet  are  the  broad-headed  wrought-iron  nail  on 
which  hung  the  bull's-eye  wratch,  and  the  circle  worn 
on  the  wall  by  the  warming-pan.  The  original  barn 
was  behind  the  house,  in  a  sheltered  spot  near  the  old 
orchard.  At  the  roadside  is  the  stone  horse-block, 
built  into  the  stone  fence,  and  containing  circular 
depressions,  made  by  generations  of  children  crack 
ing  hickory-nuts  and  butternuts  there.  From  the 
boards  of  the  original  garret  floor  of  the  house  boxes 
and  paper-weights  are  now  made,  and  varnished  pen 
holders  from  the  twigs  of  the  great  elm.  In  reply  to 


ON    THE    FARM.  39 

a  suggestion  recently  made  by  Miss  Frances  E.  Wil- 
lard,  that  the  old  homestead  be  bought  from  its 
present  owners  and  perpetually  preserved  in  its  pres 
ent  state,  Mr.  Whittier  wrote: 1— 

MY  DEAR  FRIEND, — I  have  just  received  thy  note  respect 
ing  the  old  Whittier  homestead  in  Haverhill.  I  do  not  know 
how  to  thank  thee  for  thy  interest  in  the  matter.  It  is  very 
generous  and  noble  on  thy  part.  I  am  at  present  confined  here 
by  illness,  and  have  no  certain  knowledge  of  the  willingness  of 
the  owner  to  sell  the  property.  I  will  be  glad  to  have  the  old 
place — the  home  built  by  my  American  ancestor  more  than 
200  years  ago — secured  in  the  way  proposed.  I  think  the 
Whittier  Club  of  Haverhill  might  feel  interested  in  the  plan. 
I  will  send  them  the  extracts  from  the  Chicago  paper.  If  the 
thing  can  be  done  without  too  much  trouble,  I  shall  be  glad. 
I  will  give  $100  toward  it. 

I  am  most  gratefully  thy  old  friend, 

JOHN  G.  WHITTIER. 

Whittier  first  attended  the  district  school  when  he 
was  a  little  chap  in  his  seventh  winter.  The  school- 
houses  of  that  time  were  warmed  by  a  fireplace,  the 
wood  for  which  was  split  and  piled  up  and  brought 
in  by  the  boys  as  needed.  There  were  no  writing- 
books,  but  a  strong  coarse  paper  of  foolscap  size  was 
used,  either  in  single  sheets  or  the  sheets  stitched 
together.  Lead-pencils  were  unknown  ;  a  chunky 
plummet  of  lead  was  used  instead,  and  it  was  usually 
made  at  home  and  cut  into  various  shapes  to  suit  the 
owner's  taste.  Whittier's  first  schoolmaster  was 
Joshua  Coffin,  who  was  teaching  that  winter  in  a  pri 
vate  house,  as  the  schoolhouse  was  undergoing  re 
pairs.  This  explains  a  mysterious  passage  in  the 


Letter  published  in  the  "  Literary  World,"  Feb.  4,  1888. 


40  JOHN    G.    WHITTIER. 

poem  "  To  my  Old  Schoolmaster,"  in  which  we  read 
of  the  sound  of  the  cradle-rock,  and  squall  coming 
through  the  cracked  and  crazy  wall,  and  "  the  good- 
man's  voice  at  strife  with  his  shrill  and  tipsy  wife." 
What  young  reader  of  Whittier  has  not  racked  his 
brain,  hitherto,  for  explanation  of  occurrences  so 
queer  in  a  school?  In  succeeding  winters  little  John 
and  his  brother  learned  their  lessons  in  the  brown 
schoolhouse  that  stood  a  half-mile  from  home,  but  is 
now  no  more.  For  pictures  of  these  school-days  read 
the  poems  "  In  School  Days,"  "  My  Playmate," 
"  Snow-Bound,"  "  The  Barefoot  Boy,"  and  the  lines 
mentioned  above,  "  To  my  Old  Schoolmaster." 
Joshua  Coffin  was  the  poet's  life-long  friend.  He  was 
born  in  Newbury  in  1792,  was  graduated  at  Dart 
mouth  College  in  1817.  He  became  the  historian  of 
Newbury,  held  various  offices  in  that  town,  and  was 
one  of  the  twelve  resolute  men  who  formed  the  first 
anti-slavery  society  in  New  England  (one  stormy 
night,  in  Boston).  Some  one  speaks  of  Coffin  as 
"  that  huge  and  voluble  personification  of  good 
humor."  His  fine  massive  face  is  pictured  in  "  Har 
per's  Magazine,"  July  25,  1875,  together  with  a  view 
of  his  residence  in  Newburyport.  He  died  in  that 
city  in  1864. 

In  the  first  four  of  the  autobiographic  poems  above 
mentioned — which  seem  to  me  of  unsurpassable 
beauty  in  their  kind — are  found  shy  references  to 
school  loves.  Of  course  he  had  them.  All  poets 
have.  You  remember  Burns's  first  love  ? — the  bonnie, 
sweet,  sonsie  lass,  who  initiated  him  into  "  that  de 
licious  passion  which,  in  spite  of  acid  disappointment, 
gin-horse  prudence,  and  book-worm  philosophy," 


ON   THE    FARM.  41 

he  held  to  be  "  the  first  of  human  joys,  our  dearest 
blessing  here  below."  Whittier's  pines  of  Ramoth 
Hill  (an  imaginary  place),  the  song  the  veeries  sang, 
the  violet-fringed  mossy  seat,  the  tangled  golden 
curls,  the  trembling  voice,  the  falling  blossoms, — 
what  yearning  emotions,  what  strangely  thrilling 
memories,  these  beautiful  verses  excite  ! 

The  dawn  of  the  poetic  instinct  came  rather  early, 
through  the  accident  of  his  becoming  acquainted 
with  the  poetry  of  Robert  Burns.  Here  is  the  story 
as  he  told  it  to  Robert  Collyer  : ' — 

"  Whittier  said  to  me  "  (writes  Mr.  Collyer),  " '  I 
hear  thee  is  lecturing  this  winter  on  Burns.  I  should 
like  to  hear  thee.  Burns  is  to  me  the  noblest  poet  of 
our  race.  He  was  the  first  poet  I  read,  and  he  will 
be  the  last.  Our  people  did  not  care  for  poetry  when 
I  was  a  boy.  We  had  in  our  house  an  American 
reader,  quite  popular  at  that  time,  in  which  I  found 
some  pieces  of  the  old  school  of  singers;  and,  besides 
that,  we  had  a  poem  called  the  "  Davideis,"  written 
by  a  "  Friend,"  and  held  in  great  esteem  by  our  body. 
But  somehow  these  did  not  seem  to  touch  me;  they 
were  not  what  I  wanted.  One  day  one  of  our  preach 
ers  came  to  stay  all  night;  and  noticing,  as  we  sat  by 
the  fire,  that  I  was  intent  on  a  book,  he  said,  "  I  will 
read  to  thee,  if  thee  likes,  some  poems  by  Robert 
Burns.  I  have  a  copy  with  me."  3  So  he  got  the  book 

1  See  "  Every  Saturday,"  June  3,  1871. 

2  In  his  autobiographic  notes,  Mr.  Whittier  states  that  it  was 
Joshua  Coffin  who  first  introduced  him  to  Burns.     He  says: — 

"  When  I  was  fourteen  years  old,  my  first  schoolmaster,  Joshua 
Coffin,  the  able,  eccentric  historian  of  Newbury,  brought  with  him 
to  our  house  a  volume  of  Burns's  poems,  from  which  he  read, 


42  JOHN    G.    WHITTIER. 

and  began  to  read.  It  was  the  first  I  had  heard  of 
Burns,  and  my  wonder  and  delight  over  what  I  heard 
is  as  fresh  still  as  if  it  were  yesterday.  I  had  heard 
nothing  up  to  that  moment,  it  seemed  to  me,  that  had 
any  right  to  be  called  poetry;  and  I  listened  as  long 
as  the  old  man  would  read.  I  noticed  he  left  the 
book  on  the  table,  so  I  rose  at  gray  dawn  next  morn 
ing,  and  read  for  myself.  I  was  hanging  over  the 
book  when  the  Friend  came  down,  and  then  he  told 
me  he  was  going  farther,  to  visit  such  and  such 
meetings,  would  be  back  at  such  a  time,  and,  if  I 
liked,  would  leave  the  book  with  me.  Thee  may  be 
sure  I  gratefully  accepted  his  offer.  I  read  Burns 
every  moment  I  had  to  spare.  And  this  was  one  great 
result  to  me  of  my  communion  with  him:  I  found 
that  the  things  out  of  which  poems  came  were  not,  as 
I  had  always  imagined,  somewhere  away  off  in  a 
world  and  life  lying  outside  the  edge  of  our  own  New 
Hampshire  sky, — they  were  right  here  about  my  feet 


greatly  to  my  delight.  I  begged  him  to  leave  the  book  with  me 
and  set  myself  at  once  to  the  task  of  mastering  the  glossary  of  the 
Scottish  dialect  at  its  close.  This  was  about  the  first  poetry  I  had 
ever  read, — with  the  exception  of  that  of  the  Bible,  of  which  I  had 
been  a  close  student, — and  it  had  a  lasting  influence  upon  me.  I 
began  to  make  rhymes  myself,  and  to  imagine  stories  and  adven 
tures.  In  fact,  I  lived  a  sort  of  dual  life,  and  in  a  world  of  fancy, 
as  well  as  in  the  world  of  plain  matter  of  fact  about  me." 

As  Mr.  Collyer's  account  was  from  memory,  we  must  give  the 
preference  to  Mr.  Whittier's  deliberately  written  statement. 

It  should  be  noted  that  in  one  of  his  prose  sketches  Mr.  Whittier 
relates  that  he  first  heard  words  of  Burns  as  uttered  by  an  old 
Scotch  tramp,  who,  after  eating  his  bread  and  cheese  and  drinking 
his  mug  of  cider,  sang,  with  a  full,  rich  voice  and  with  spirit, 
"  Auld  Lang  Syne,"  "  Bonnie  Doon,"  and  "  Highland  Mary." 


ON    THE    FARM.  43 

and  among  the  people  I  knew.     The  common  things 
of  our  common  life  I  found  were  full  of  poetry.'", 

Mr.  Collyer  continues:  "  He  told  me  also  what  such 
a  man  only  can  say  in  good  faith,  that  he  could  not 
understand  what  the  critics  mean  when  they  say 
there  are  things  in  Burns  not  fit  to  be  read, — things 
impure  and  vile,  the  spume  of  a  fallen  spirit.  *  I 
never  found  such  things,'  he  said.  *  I  read  all  Burns, 
every  line  of  him;  and,  while  there  is  a  difference,  of 
course,  to  me  every  line  is  good.'  I  know  Whittier 
could  not  have  thought,  as  he  told  me  this,  that  Paul 
said  once,  'To  the  pure  all  things  are  pure';  and  how 
purely  true  his  commentary  on  Burns  was  to  the 
great  old  text!  " 

Mr.  Whittier  did  not  state  his  whole  opinion  of 
Burns  to  Robert  Collyer  (conversation  is  so  frag 
mentary).  We  are  not,  of  course,  to  understand  that 
he  did  not  know  and  disapprove  of  Burns's  peculiar 
failing,  did  not  know  that  "eating  love  inhabits  in 
the  finest  wits  of  all."  This  is  clear  from  the  follow 
ing  stanzas  in  his  poem  "  Burns,"  written  nearly 
twenty  years  previous  to  the  Collyer  talk: — 
"  And  if  at  times  an  evil  strain, 

To  lawless  love  appealing, 
Broke  in  upon  the  sweet  refrain 
Of  pure  and  healthful  feeling, 
"  It  died  upon  the  eye  and  ear, 
No  inward  answer  gaining; 
No  heart  had  I  to  see  or  hear 

The  discord  and  the  staining ! 
"  Let  those  who  never  erred  forget 
His  worth,  in  vain  bewailings  ; 
Sweet  Soul  of  Song  !— I  own  my  debt 
Uncancelled  by  his  failings  !" 


44  JOHN    G.    WHITTIER. 

"  I  began  to  make  rhymes  myself,"  he  says.  Let 
us  *ee  to  what  purpose.  In  1882  Mr.  Whittier  sent  a 
letter  and  poem  to  Friends  in  Chester,  Pennsylvania, 
who  were  commemorating  the  bicentennial  of  the 
landing  of  Penn  in  America.  The  poem  is  not  in 
cluded  in  his  collected  works,  latest  edition,1  and 
has  not  before  appeared  in  a  book.  "  Looking  over 
some  old  papers  recently,"  writes  the  poet,  "  I  found 
some  verses  written  by  me  when  a  boy  of  sixteen, 
nearly  sixty  years  ago.  Of  course  the  circumstances 
under  which  they  were  penned  alone  entitle  them  to 
notice,  but  I  venture  to  send  them  as  the  only  response 
to  .thy  request  which  I  can  make." 

WILLIAM  PENN. 
The  tyrant  on  his  gilded  throne, 

The  warrior  in  his  battle-dress, 
The  holier  triumph  ne'er  have  known 

Of  justice  and  of  righteousness. 
Founder  of  Pennsylvania  !     Thou 

Didst  feel  it,  when  thy  words  of  peace 
Smoothed  the  stern  chieftain's  swarthy  brow, 

And  bade  the  dreadful  war-dance  cease. 
On  Schuylkill's  banks  no  fortress  frowned, 

The  peaceful  cot  alone  was  there  ; 
No  beacon  fires  the  hilltops  crowned, 

No  death-shot  swept  the  Delaware. 
In  manners  meek,  in  precepts  mild, 

Thou  and  thy  friends  serenely  taught 
The  savage  huntsman,  fierce  and  wild, 

To  raise  to  Heaven  his  erring  thought. 

1  Reference  is  had  to  the  elegant  "  library  "  edition,  published 
by  Houghton,  Mifflin  &  Co.  In  this  edition  the  poems  are  newly 
grouped,  and  many  of  them  are  accompanied  by  new  introductory 
notes  by  Whittier. 


ON   THE    FARM.  45 

How  all  unlike  the  bloody  band 

That  unrelenting  Cortez  led 
To  princely  Montezuma's  land, 

And  ruin  'round  his  pathway  shed. 

With  hearts  that  knew  not  how  to  spare, 

Disdaining  milder  means  to  try, — 
The  crimson  sword  alone  was  there : 

The  Indian's  choice  to  yield  or  die. 

But  thou,  meek  Pennsylvanian  sire, 

Unarmed,  alone,  from  terror  free, 
Taught  by  the  heathen  council  fire 

The  lessons  of  Christianity, 

Founder  of  Pennsylvania's  State, — 

Not  on  the  blood-wet  rolls  of  fame, 
But  with  the  wise,  the  good,  the  great, 

The  world  shall  place  thy  sainted  name. 
1824. 

This  is  not  stuff  to  be  ashamed  of.  Pretty  strong 
verse  for  a  novice  !  And  (with  the  exception  of 
verses,  often  of  a  humorous  character,  written  on  his 
slate  at  school,  and  sometimes  passed  around  by  his 
fellow-pupils  somewhat  against  his  will)  they  are  the 
first  known  poetry  of  his.  There  is  a  relish  in  them 
of  better  things.  His  two  years'  study  of  Burns  is 
beginning  to  bear  fruit.  But  now  comes  the  second 
important  event  in  his  literary  life, — his  discovery  by 
young  William  Lloyd  Garrison,  then  editing  a  paper 
in  Newburyport.  Garrison  is  described  as  being  at 
that  time  a  neatly  dressed  youth,  popular  with  young 
ladies  ;  having  rich  dark-brown  hair,  forehead  high 
and  very  white,  cheeks  ruddy,  lips  full  and  sensitive, 
wide  hazel  eyes,  active  movements,  and  a  bright  and 
happy  disposition. 


46  JOHN    G.    WHITTIER. 

Father  Whittier  had  subscribed  for  Garrison's 
"  Free  Press,"  and  was  much  pleased  with  its  human 
itarian  tone.  Greenleaf's  elder  sister,  Mary,  had, 
unknown  to  him,  sent  to  the  "  Free  Press  "  by  .the 
postman,  in  1826,  a  poem  of  her  brother's,  probably 
that  called  "The  Deity." 

One  day,  as  he  was  mending  stone  fence  by  the 
road,  the  postman  threw  him  the  family  copy  of  the 
"Free  Press";  and  he  was  dumfounded  to  find  a 
piece  of  his  own  in  the  poet's  corner.  He  wrote 
and  sent  others;  but  let  William  Lloyd  Garrison  him 
self  tell  the  story  :— 

"  Going  upstairs  to  my  office,  one  day,  I  observed 
a  letter  lying  near  the  door,  to  my  address  ;  which, 
on  opening,  I  found  to  contain  an  original  piece  of 
poetry  for  my  paper,  the  '  Free  Press.'  The  ink  was 
very  pale,  the  handwriting  very  small  ;  and  having  at 
that  time  a  horror  of  newspaper  '  original  poetry,' — 
which  has  rather  increased  than  diminished  with 
the  lapse  of  time, — my  first  impulse  was  to  tear  it  in 
pieces  without  reading  it,  the  chances  of  rejection 
after  its  perusal  being  as  ninety-nine  to  one  ;  .  .  . 
but,  summoning  resolution  to  read  it,  I  was  equally 
surprised  and  gratified  to  find  it  above  mediocrity, 
and  so  gave  it  a  place  in  my  journal.  ...  As  I 
was  anxious  to  find  out  the  writer,  my  post-rider  one 
day  divulged  the  secret,  stating  that  he  had  dropped 
the  letter  in  the  manner  described,  and  that  it  was 
written  by  a  Quaker  lad  named  Whittier,  who  was 
daily  at  work  on  the  shoemaker's  bench  with  hammer 
and  lapstone  at  East  Haverhill.  Jumping  into  a  vehi 
cle,  I  lost  no  time  in  driving  [with  a  friend]  to  see  the 
youthful  rustic  bard,  who  came  into  the  room  with 


ON    THE    FARM.  47 

shrinking  diffidence,  almost  unable  to  speak,  and 
blushing  like  a  maiden.  Giving  him  some  words  of 
encouragement,  I  addressed  myself  more  particularly 
to  his  parents,  and  urged  them  with  great  earnest 
ness  to  grant  him  every  possible  facility  for  the  devel 
opment  of  his  remarkable  genius."  1 

Elsewhere  Mr.  Garrison  writes  :  "  I  found  him  a 
bashful  boy  covered  with  blushes,  from  whom  scarcely 
a  word  could  be  extracted." 

It  seems  that  young  Whittier  had  been  at  work  in 
the  field,  and,  on  being  called,  he  had  come  up  to  the 
back  door,  and  got  on  his  coat  and  shoes,  and 
exchanged  a  few  words  with  his  callers,  when  the 
father  appeared  on  the  scene. 

"  '  Is  this  friend  Whittier  ?  ' 

"'Yes.' 

"  *  We  want  to  see  you  about  your  son.' 

"  'Why,what  has  the  boy  been  doing  ? '  "(anxiously). 

On  learning  that  the  crime  was  nothing  more  than 
verse-making,  his  alarm  was  quieted.  He  informed 
Mr.  Garrison  that  the  boy  had  been  writing  verse 
almost  as  soon  as  he  could  write  at  all,  and,  when 
pen  and  ink  failed  him,  he  would  resort  to  chalk  and 
charcoal, — but  all  with  so  much  secrecy  that  it  was 
only  by  removing  some  rubbish  in  the  garret  that  his 
concealed  manuscripts  had  been  brought  to  light. 
When  Garrison  urged  the  father  to  give  him  an  edu 
cation,  and  allow  him  to  follow  his  guiding  star,  the 
father  answered  with  deep  emotion,  "  Sir,  poetry  will 
not  give  him  bread"  and  begged  him  not  to  put  such 
notions  into  his  son's  head. 


1  Life  of  William  Lloyd  Garrison,  by  his  children,  i.  67. 


48  JOHN    G.    WHITTIER. 

Garrison's  mouth  was  closed  by  what  he  himself 
felt  to  be  the  truth  of  the  old  man's  words,  and  he 
took  his  leave. 

But  the  seeds  of  ambition  had  been  sown,  a  quench 
less  ardor  set  aflame  in  the  young  man's  breast.  It 
seemed  utterly  out  of  the  question  for  the  father  to 
afford  a  single  term's  schooling  away  from  home. 
But  Greenleaf  set  his  wits  to  work.  It  happened 
that  the  young  man  who  helped  on  the  farm  in 
summer  was  accustomed  to  make  ladies'  shoes  and 
slippers  during  the  winter,  and  he  agreed  to  instruct 
Whittier  in  the  mysteries  of  the  "gentle  craft  of 
leather,"  and  thus  enable  him  to  get  money  for  a 
term  of  schooling  at  Haverhill  Academy. 

Behold,  then,  our  deep-eyed,  sunny-tempered  lad 
of  genius  seated  on  his  bench  amid  shoemakers'  wax, 
bristles,  pincers,  paste-horns,  rosin,  and  waxed  ends  ! 

"  Rap,  rap  !  upon  the  well-worn  stone 

How  falls  the  polished  hammer  ! 
Rap,  rap  !  the  measured  sound  has  grown 
A  quick  and  merry  clamor. 

"  Now  shape  the  sole !  now  deftly  curl 

The  glossy  vamp  around  it, 
And  bless  the  while  the  bright-eyed  girl 
Whose  gentle  fingers  bound  it !  " 

—  Whittier. 

He  had  probably  known  something  of  the  art  pre 
viously,  judging  from  Mr.  Garrison's  account  above 
quoted.  For  it  was  a  common  thing  for  some 
member  of  every  farm  to  mend  the  horses'  harness 
and  make  the  home  shoes.  Garrison  himself  had, 
when  a  boy,  been  apprenticed  for  a  short  time  to  the 
shoe  business  in  Lynn,  and  actually  learned  how  to 


ON    THE    FARM.  49 

make  a  shoe.  To  these  two  illustrious  shoemakers 
add  the  names  of  Noah  Worcester,  Henry  Wilson, 
Roger  Sherman  (one  of  the  signers  of  the  Declara 
tion  of  Independence),  Jacob  Boehmen,  and  many 
others,  whose  lives  are  sketched  in  William  E.  Winks's 
work  on  Illustrious  Shoemakers.1  Coleridge,  too, 
had  a  great  idea  in  his  youth  of  turning  shoemaker  ! 
The  introduction  of  machinery  for  making  shoes  has 
now  almost  annihilated  the  old-style  shoemaker  with 
leather  apron  and  hands  redolent  of  wax  ;  his  place 
is  taken  by  the  cutter  and  clicker  and  riveter  and 
machine-girl  of  the  great  factory, — more  's  the  pity  ! 
Mr.  Moses  E.  Emerson,  who  was  one  of  Whittier's 
teachers  in  the  district  school  and  lived  for  a  year  in 
the  Whittier  family,  gave,  at  the  age  of  eighty-two, 
some  interesting  reminiscences  of  his  school-teaching 
days.  The  occasion  was  the  reunion  in  1885  of  the 
class  of  1827-30  of  the  Haverhill  Academy.  "  Whittier 
loved  his  fun  and  joke  as  well  as  the  rest  of  us,"  said 
he.  "  If  my  memory  serves  me  rightly,  Mr.  Whittier, 
with  others  on  the  farm,  made  shoes  in  one  of  those 
little  shops  you  see  now  at  country  farm-houses.  I 
remember  that  he  used  to  sit  on  a  low  bench  that 
had  a  little  draw2  at  the  side.  When  I  have  entered 


1  This  book  can  claim  the  proud  preeminence  of  containing  the 
most  atrocious  caricature  portrait  of  Whittier  extant  in  the  world, 
the  work,  evidently,  of  a  24-carat  donkey.     It  looks  as  if  its  sub 
ject  were  afflicted  with  an  aggravated  case  of  mumps,  and   had 
been   stung  about   the   eyes   by  yellow-jackets.     No   shoemaker 
reading   the  book   but   would    turn    sadly  away  from   any  incip 
ient    intention  he    might    have    formed  of   purchasing   Whittier's 
poems. 

2  A  New  England  local  expression  for  "  drawer." 

4 


50  JOHN    G.    WHITTIER. 

the  shop  for  a  chat  with  those  I  was  sure  to  find 
there,  I  remember  that  often  Mr.  Whittier  would 
pull  out  the  little  draw  and  hand  me  some  loose 
sheets  of  paper,  with  the  poems  he  had  [written]  on 
them  during  the  day.  He  usually  offered  no  com 
ment,  but  continued  steadily  at  his  work."  ' 

Whittier  entered  Haverhill  Academy  in  April, 
1827,  and  remained  six  months,  returning  home 
every  Friday  evening.  It  was  the  first  year  of  the 
school's  existence,  and  the  building  had  never  been 
occupied.  He  wrote  the  dedicatory  ode,  and  acquired 
respect  thereby.  He  roomed  and  boarded  with  the 
family  of  Mr.  A.  W.  Thayer,  editor  and  publisher  of 
the  Haverhill  "  Gazette."  Numerous  poems — some 
of  them  in  the  Scotch  dialect — were  contributed  by 
him  to  this  paper.  Here  is  one  composed  a  year  or 
two  later,  in  imitation  of  Burns  :  a — 

THE  DRUNKARD  TO  HIS  BOTTLE. 

"  Hoot ! — daur  ye  shaw  ye're  face  again, 
Ye  auld  black  thief  o'  purse  and  brain  ? 
For  foul  disgrace,  for  dool  an'  pain 

An'  shame  I  ban  ye  : 
Wae  's  me,  that  e'er  my  lips  have  ta'en 

Your  kiss  uncanny  ! 

"  Nae  mair,  auld  knave,  without  a  shillin' 
To  keep  a  starvin'  wight  frae  stealin' 
Ye'll  sen'  me  hameward,  blin'  and  reelin', 

Frae  nightly  swagger, 
By  wall  and  post  my  pathway  feelm1, 

Wi'  mony  a  stagger. 


1  Boston  Advertiser,  1885  (about  September  n). 
9  From  the  library  edition  of  the  poems,  1888. 


ON    THE    FARM.  51 

"  Nae  mair  o'  fights  that  bruise  an'  mangle, 
Nae  mair  o'  nets  my  feet  to  tangle, 
Nae  mair  o'  senseless  brawl  an'  wrangle, 

Wi'  frien'  an'  wife,  too, 
Nae  mair  o'  deavin'  din  an'  jangle 

My  feckless  life  through. 

"  Ye  thievin',  cheatin',  auld  Cheap  Jack, 
Peddlin'  your  poison  brose,  I  crack 
Your  banes  against  rny  ingle-back 

Wi'  meikle  pleasure. 
De'il  mend  ye  i'  his  workshop  black, 

E'en  at  his  leisure  ! 
*  *  *  *  * 

'  Cock  a'  ye 're  heids,  my  bairns  fu'  gleg, 
My  winsome  Robin,  Jean,  an'  Meg, 
For  food  an'  claes  ye  shall  na  beg 

A  doited  daddie. 

Dance,  auld  wife,  on  your  girl-day  leg, 
Ye  Ve  foun'  your  laddie  !  " 

The  master  of  the  school,  Oliver  Carlton,  could 
with  difficulty  be  made  to  believe  that  the  first  com 
position  handed  in  by  Whittier  had  been  written  by 
him  without  assistance.  But  the  matter  was  soon 
put  beyond  question  by  the  production  of  many  more 
of  equal  or  greater  merit.  The  lad  indulged  in  not  a 
single  luxury  this  first  winter;  for  at  the  end  of  the 
half-year  he  still  had  the  Mexican  quarter  of  a  dollar 
which  remained  as  surplus  after  he  had  calculated 
and  apportioned  his  expenses.1 

The  most  important  thing  that  happened  to  him 
during  this  and  the  following  year  (for  the  next  year 
he  taught  school  in  West  Amesbury  and  got  enough 


1  Underwood,  p.  69. 


52  JOHN    G.    WHITTIER. 

money  for  another  six  months  at  the  Academy)  was 
his  being  offered  the  use  of  two  good  private  libra 
ries.  Genius  without  knowledge  will  go  but  a  little 
way.  Whittier,  like  Abraham  Lincoln  and  Henry 
Wilson,  wrested  his  intellectual  education  from 
between  the  covers  of  books  read  often  by  stealth, 
outside  of  college  walls.  And  it  is  well.  University 
men  are  good,  and  field  men  and  mountain  men  are 
good.  Great  men,  like  great  trees,  grow  far  apart, 
and  draw  their  nutriment  from  a  wide  area  of  soil 
and  circumambient  air.  If  they  are  to  have  a  dis 
tinctive  savor,  or  race,  they  must  be  of  different 
species  and  grown  on  different  soils.  That  the  scho 
lastic  culture  of  Longfellow  and  Bryant  and  Lowell 
was  not  Whittier's,  or  Whitman's,  or  Lincoln's,  is  the 
world's  gain.  The  daughter  of  Mr.  Thayer  of  Hav- 
erhill  speaks  of  the  great  delight  Whittier  took  in 
reading  books  from  her  father's  library,  being  often 
so  absorbed  in  thought  that  the  noise  of  three  chil 
dren  playing  around  him  did  not  serve  to  drive  him 
from  his  pursuit.  He  was  always  an  eager  reader, 
and  would  walk  miles,  he  says,  to  borrow  a  book  he 
had  heard  of.  The  other  library  placed  at  his  dis 
posal  in  Haverhill  was  that  of  Dr.  Elias  Weld,  the 
"wise  old  doctor"  of  "  Snow-Bound, "  and  the  one  to 
whom  "  The  Countess  "  is  dedicated.  "  He  was  the 
one  cultivated  man  of  the  neighborhood,"  Mr.  Whit 
tier  has  said. 

A  fellow-student  at  the  Academy,  the  Hon.  Jackson 
B.  Street,  has  interesting  remembrances  of  Whit 
tier:— 

"  As  I  remember,  he  came  in  for  recitations  only, 
and  did  his  studying  elsewhere.  I  can  picture  him 


ON     THE    FARM.  53 

now  standing  beside  the  master's  desk,  reciting  in 
a  subdued  tone.  To  my  boyish  fancy,  the  knowl 
edge  that  he  was  gifted  enough  to  write  the  ode  read 
at  the  dedication  of  the  Academy,  and  also  poems  for 
the  village  paper,  raised  him  to  a  high  place  in  my 
estimation.  His  presence  in  the  room  had  a  great 
attraction  for  all  of  us.  As  for  myself,  I  remember 
that  I  used  to  sit  and  gaze  at  him, — a  habit  that  often 
brought  down  Master  Carlton's  displeasure  upon  my 
innocent  head.  I  could  n't  help  it,  however.  I  only 
know  it  was  impossible  for  me  to  do  any  studying 
when  Mr.  Whittier  was  in  the  room." 

Rev.  Charles  Wingate,  as  a  lad  of  thirteen,  was 
with  Whittier  at  the  Academy.  Says  he:— 

"  I  remember  him  as  a  big  boy  whom  we  were  all 
proud  to  know,  and  by  whom  we  all  esteemed  it  the 
greatest  of  honors  to  be  noticed.  Many  and  many  a 
time  I  remember  seeing  his  slate  going  about  from 
hand  to  hand  with  some  little  poem  that  he  had  struck 
off  in  school.  I  used  always  to  deem  it  an  exquisite 
pleasure,  as  well  as  a  deep  honor,  if  the  slate  were 
passed  to  me.  I  do  not  remember  if  Mr.  Whittier 
ever  approved  of  this  proceeding  on  the  part  of  his 
schoolmates.  He  was  always  modest  in  showing  his 
productions,  and  when  his  slate  was  passed  on  from 
hand  to  hand,  as  I  have  told  you,  it  was  generally  the 
result  of  some  breach  of  confidence  on  the  part  of 
some  one  of  his  particular  friends  who  sat  near  him. 
These  verses  were  often  of  a  humorous  nature,  and 
often  had  as  subjects  things  to  be  found  in  the  school 
room.  Many,  however,  were  of  a  more  serious  and 
thoughtful  character."1 

Boston  Advertiser,  Dec.  17,  1887. 


54  JOHN    G.    WHITTIER. 

The  pupils  at  the  Academy  were  of  both  sexes,  and 
from  ten  to  twenty-five  years  old.  The  first  precep 
tress  in  charge  of  the  young  ladies  was  Miss  Arethusa 
Hall,  who  is,  I  believe,  still  living  in  Northampton, 
Massachusetts.  She  has  all  her  life  been  a  teacher  in 
private  schools  and  academies  of  Massachusetts  and 
Brooklyn,  Long  Island.  As  an  educator  she  holds 
high  rank.  She  has  published  one  or  two  educa 
tional  works,  as  well  as  the  "  Thoughts  of  Blaise 
Pascal,"  and  a  life  of  the  Rev.  Sylvester  Judd,  in 
whose  family  she  lived  when  a  girl.  For  a  class 
reunion  of  the  Haverhill  Academy,  in  1885,  she  wrote 
the  following  interesting  letter,  being  then  over 
eighty  years  of  age: — 

NORTHAMPTON,  MASS.,  Sept.  3,  1885. 
THE  REV.  MR.  WINGATE: 

DEAR  SIR, — I  have  your  circular  inviting  me  to  meet  Mr. 
Whittier  at  a  reunion  of  his  schoolmates  of  Haverhill  Academy. 
It  would  give  me  great  pleasure  not  only  to  meet  one  of  the 
most  distinguished  of  our  American  poets,  whom  I  for  the 
moment  assume  the  honor  of  calling  one  of  my  pupils, — but 
also  to  see  again  his  young  lady  schoolmates,  who  were 
directly  under  my  care  and  instruction.  I  remember  Mr. 
Whittier  well,  as  he  was  then,  having  enjoyed  few  opportuni 
ties  for  academic  culture,  and  whom  Mr.  Duncan  introduced  to 
my  attention  as  "  a  young  man  who,  at  the  shoemaker's  bench, 
often  hammered  out  fine  verses."  I  recollect  the  assiduity 
with  which  he  was  reported  to  study,  and  I  have  vividly  pic 
tured  in  my  memory  his  appearance  at  a  public  examination, 
in  an  embarrassed  attitude,  undergoing  the  well-sustained 
ordeal.  From  that  time  I  followed  his  literary  career  with 
interest,  imbued  as  it  was  with  the  noblest  principles  of  human 
ity  no  less  than  with  the  deepest  poetic  feeling.  Only  a  few 
days  ago  I  reread  with  intense  delight,  summer  though  it  was, 


ON     THE    FARM.  55 

his  "  Snow-Bound,"  picturing  in  many  points  my  own  early 
experiences.  I  regret  very  much  that  I  do  not  see  the  prob 
ability  of  my  being  present  at  the  proposed  reunion.  Failing 
in  this,  you  will  please  present  my  highest  appreciation  and 
regard  to  Mr.  Whittier,  and  my  kind  wishes  to  any  of  my  old 
pupils  who  may  be  at  the  gathering. 

Respectfully  yours, 

ARETHUSA  HALL. 

Friends  who  knew  Whittier  at  the  period  of  which 
we  are  now  treating  describe  him  as  being  earnest, 
conscientious,  witty,  quick  to  help  in  righting  a 
wrong;  never  flattering  or  to  be  flattered;  a  love  of 
fun  and  teasing  lurking  under  his  grave  exterior  ; 
cold  and  embarrassed  in  general  society,  but  in  a 
small,  congenial  circle  a  fine  converser.  In  person 
he  was  tall  and  slender,  with  a  shy  beautiful  face,  as 
innocent  and  modest  in  appearance  (judging  from 
his  portrait)  as  the  boy  Milton  or  Longfellow.  The 
portrait  painted  by  Bass  Otis  ten  years  later  (en 
graved  for  the  library  edition  of  the  poems)  shows 
well  his  amiability  and  geniality  of  disposition. 
Friends  of  the  Academy  days  describe  Whittier  as  a 
silent,  thinking  boy,  neatly  dressed,  rather  lionized  at 
school,  especially  by  the  girls  ;  one  whom  you  would 
turn  to  look  at  a  second  time  on  the  street.  At  the 
Wednesday  afternoon  meetings  of  the  scholars  for 
social  and  literary  entertainment  he  was  usually 
present,  and  entered  into  the  spirit  of  the  hour  with 
zest,  freed  for  the  time  being  from  the  bashful  reserve 
which  usually  characterized  him  in  public. 

In  the  village  he  was  a  member  of  the  group  of 
progressive  intellectual  people  who  met  at  Judge  Pit 
man's  and  Judge  Minot's.  It  is  said  that  he  was  the 


56  JOHN    G.    WHITTIER. 

central  figure  at  these  gatherings,  the  one  whose 
coming  was  always  waited  for;  and  here  he  threw  off 
his  natural  reserve  and  took  part  in  the  conversation, 
always  intensely  interested,  a  good  listener,  and 
biding  his  time  to  utter  his  own  thought.  When  his 
distant  kinsman,  Daniel  Webster,  was  a  young  man 
at  Portsmouth,  New  Hampshire,  he  exercised  a  curi 
ously  similar  influence  upon  social  circles.  All  who 
knew  Webster  at  that  time  speak  of  his  tenderness, 
gayety,  exceedingly  rich  humor,  and  fine  social  pow 
ers.  A  lady  who  knew  him  says  :  "He  soon  formed 
a  circle  around  him  of  which  he  was  the  life  and 
soul."  Yet,  in  basic  traits,  how  dissimilar  the  two  ! — 
Webster  conservative,  prosaic,  unimaginative  ;  Whit- 
tier  the  exact  opposite.  In  each,  however,  fervid 
intensity  of  emotion  is  balanced  by  a  shrewd  practi 
cal  humor, — a  sense  of  the  ludicrous  which  saves 
them  from  extravaganza. 

There  are  discernible  in  Whittier  (as  in  Webster) 
many  of  the  distinctive  New  England  traits, — some 
thing  of  the  shrewd  caution  and  conservatism  that 
plow  so  deep  a  line  of  separation  between  the  East 
erner  and  the  sanguine-audacious  and  nonchalant 
Westerner.  But,  when  all  is  said,  Whittier  stands 
unique, — a  curious  cross  between  Quaker,  Yankee,  and 
Saracen,  and  yet  fibred  with  the  purest  Americanism. 

The  foregoing  reminiscences  of  Whittier's  school 
days  help  us  to  understand  a  little  matter  that  other 
wise  would  seem  very  mysterious;  namely,  how  Wil 
lis  Gaylord  Clarke  could  have  written  of  Whittier,  in 
1830,  to  the  London  "  Literary  Gazette,"  as  "a  young 
poet-editor  of  great  promise." :  To  us,  the  couple  of 

1  James  Grant  Wilson,  in  "  Bryant  and  his  Friends,"  p.  46. 


ON     THE    FARM.  57 

dozen  of  immature  poems  the  boy  had  published  up 
to  that  date  seem  to  furnish  too  slight  a  basis  for 
such  praise.  But  poets  were  scarce  in  those  days, 
and  were  more  highly  valued  than  at  present,  as  the 
picture  of  Haverhill  society  just  given  makes  evi 
dent.  Furthermore,  William  Lloyd  Garrison  tells 
us  that  Whittier's  early  verses,  printed  in  Garrison's 
Newburyport  "  Free  Press,"  were  "  readily  copied  by 
other  papers,"  and  thus  helped  to  spread  his  fame. 


CHAPTER  II. 

THE   ANTI-SLAVERY   CONTEST. 

"  Now,  when  I  know  how  far  this  world's  happiness  can 
reach ;  now,  when  all  the  stars  of  good  fortune  shine  over  me, 
fair  and  propitious  ;  now,  is  it,  by  my  God,  a  noble  spirit  which 
stirs  in  me ;  now  do  I  give  a  mighty  proof  that  no  offering  is 
too  great  for  man's  highest  blessing — the  freedom  of  his  coun 
try  !  The  great  movement  calls  for  great  hearts ;  and  within 
me  do  I  feel  the  power  to  be  a  rock  amidst  this  raging  of 
the  waves  of  nations.  I  must  away — and  throw  my  breast 
with  fearless  force  against  this  storm  of  seas." — KORNER,  Let 
ter  to  his  Father. 

FOR  five  years — 1828  to  1833 — Whittier  watched 
the  career  of  his  friend  William  Lloyd  Garrison 
before  he  decided  to  cast  in  his  lot  with  the  despised 
Abolitionists,  in  the  meantime  employing  his  pen  in 
purely  literary  work.  Undoubtedly  there  was  a  strug 
gle  in  his  mind  as  to  just  where  his  duty  lay.  He 
had,  as  he  once  said  to  the  writer,  political  ambitions 
and  literary  aspirations  in  those  days,  and  he  would 
seem  to  have  doubted  whether  he  was  adapted  to  the 
rough  work  of  reform.  Let  it  be  remembered,  too, 
that  his  mind  matured  slowly,  that  his  educational 
advantages  had  been  slender,  and  that  to  enter  upon 


THE    ANTI-SLAVERY    CONTEST.  59 

public  work  with  success  it  was  necessary  to  have  a 
disciplined  and  well-furnished  mind. 

Not  that  hatred  of  oppression  was  not  always 
strong  in  his  breast  :  he  had  from  boyhood  up  fed  his 
mind  with  accounts  of  the  oppressions  endured  by 
his  fellow-Quakers,  and  had  inherited  from  perse 
cuted  ancestors  instincts  of  freedom.  Even  a  hun 
dred  years  after  active  persecution  of  the  Quakers 
had  ceased  in  New  England  the  old  Puritan  bitter 
ness  and  bigotry  still  existed,  and  Thomas  Chalkley, 
whose  works  were  cherished  and  frequently  read  to 
her  children  by  Mrs.  Whittier,  says  in  his  Travels, 
"  I,  being  a  stranger  and  traveler,  could  not  but 
observe  the  barbarous  and  unchristianlike  welcome 
I  had  into  Boston.  '  Oh,  what  a  pity  it  was,'  said 
one,  '  that  all  of  your  society  were  not  hanged  with 
the  other  four ! ' '  It  is  to  be  supposed,  also,  that 
that  classic  of  the  Friends,  Besse's  "  Sufferings  of  the 
Quakers,"  was  read  by  Whittier  when  a  boy.  The 
influence  of  those  old  tomes  must  have  tinctured  his 
very  blood,  and  been  built  into  every  fibre  of  his 
being.  They  alone  were  enough  to  determine  the 
whole  course  of  his  life  as  a  friend  of  the  oppressed. 

As  editor  of  three  different  journals,  during  the 
years  1828-1833,  Whittier  must  have  studied  with  con 
siderable  thoroughness  the  political  situation,  and  got 
well  informed  on  the  subject  of  slavery.  Then  in  1833 
he  publishes,  at  his  own  expense,  his  anti-slavery  pam 
phlet  "Justice  and  Expediency,"  and  takes  his  stand, 
for  life  or  for  death,  with  the  friends  of  the  slave. 
As  soon  as  he  had  fairly  faced  the  matter,  his__£oetic 
insight  let  him  see  the  shallow  sophistry  of  the 
defenders  of  slavery.  He  believed  tn  the  dignity  of 


60  JOHN    G.    WHITTIER. 

human    nature  and  in  the  Golden  Rule   of  Christ. 
Therefore  it  was  that 

"  He  went 

And  humbly  joined  him  to  the  weaker  part, 
Fanatic  named,  and  fool,  yet  well  content 

So  he  could  be  the  nearer  to  God's  heart, 
And  feel  its  solemn  pulses  sending  blood 
Through  all  the  widespread  veins  of  endless  good." 

His  first  journalistic  work  was  done  as  editor  of 
the  "American  Manufacturer"  of  Boston, — a  posi 
tion  for  which  he  was  indebted  to  his  friend  William 
Lloyd  Garrison,  who  was  at  that  time  editing  in 
Boston  the  "  National  Philanthropist,"  the  first  paper 
in  the  world  established  expressly  to  advocate  total 
abstinence  from  intoxicating  liquors.  The  founder 
of  this  paper  was  the  Rev.  William  Collier,  a  Baptist 
city  missionary,  who  kept  a  kind  of  boarding-house 
at  30  Federal  Street,  near  Milk.  Whittier  and  Gar 
rison  both  boarded  with  "  Parson  Collier,"  who  was 
also  the  proprietor  of  Whittier's  "  Manufacturer, "- 
a  protectionist  paper,  and  friendly  to  Henry  Clay.  It 
was  to  Parson  Collier's  also  that  Benjamin  Lundy 
came  in  1828,  and  first  interested  Garrison  in  the 
cause  of  the  slave.  Whittier  had  gone  to  Boston  to 
study  and  read,  1828-29,  and  he  accepted  this  edi 
torial  work,  at  $9  a  week,  because  it  enabled  him  to 
carry  on  his  studies.  He  confesses  that  he  always 
had  to  study  up  his  subjects  before  writing  his  edi 
torials  for  this  journal. 

The  next  year,  1830,  he  is  at  home,  editing  the 
Haverhill  "  Gazette."  From  July,  1830,  to  January, 
1832,  he  is  editor  of  George  D.  Prentice's  "  New  Eng- 


THE    ANTI-SLAVERY    CONTEST.  6l 

land  Weekly  Review,"  published  in  Hartford,  Con 
necticut.  When  at  the  Haverhill  Academy,  he  had 
sent  some  of  his  "compositions"  to  Prentice,  who 
liked  them  and  published  them  with  commendatory 
notice.  Young  Whittier  was  at  work  in  the  field 
when  the  letter  of  the  Hartford  publishers  was 
brought  to  him,  asking  him  to  edit  their  "  Review." 
He  was  overwhelmed  with  astonishment  at  the 
request,  yet  accepted.  He  says  the  publishers,  on 
thei**  part,  were  much  surprised  at  his  youth,  when 
they  first  met  him.  He  let  them  do  most  of  the  talk 
ing  in  the  first  interview!  The  Hartford  episode  was 
a  period  of  quiet  gestation  and  study,  during  which 
he  wrote  poems  and  sketches,  and  edited  the  literary 
remains  of  his  friend  J.  G.  C.  Brainard.  In  March, 
1831,  he  made  a  trip  home,  to  be  with  the  good  father 
during  his  last  illness.  The  publishers  of  the  "  Re 
view  "  were  so  pleased  with  his  sketches  and  poems 
that  they  had  shortly  before  issued  a  collection  of 
them  in  a  small  volume, — Whittier's  first  published 
work,  now  suppressed, — entitled  "  Legends  of  New 
England,  in  Prose  and  Verse."  The  trip  to  Haverhill 
was  of  course  by  stage-coach.  There  were  no  rose 
wood,  upholstered  boudoir  cars  to  ride  in  then, — not  a 
single  railroad  in  New  England,  and  but  two  in  the 
United  States,  and  they  just  built.1  Mr.  Whittier 


1  One  in  South  Carolina  and  one  in  New  York,  the  latter  being 
the  Mohawk  &  Hudson  Railway,  on  which  the  queer,  little  De  Witt 
Clinton  locomotive  had  been  drawing  rude  passengers-cars  for  about 
two  months.  On  some  of  these  early  railways  they  had  open  cars 
for  people  of  small  means.  As  many  of  the  Abolitionists  were  num 
bered  among  this  class,  they  occasionally  availed  themselves  of 
the  open  cars.  See  the  fascinating  Life  of  Garrison  by  his  sons. 


62  JOHN    G.    WHITTIER. 

wrote  at  the  time  an  amusing  account  of  the  hard 
ships  and  miseries  of  his  journey. 

From  1832  to  1837  Whittier  toiled  on  the  farm  and 
finally  succeeded  in  paying  off  the  debt  with  which  it 
was  encumbered.  It  is  stated  that  he  used  to  drive 
over  to  the  head  of  tide-water  on  the  Merrimack  with 
apples  and  vegetables,  which  he  exchanged  for  salt- 
fish  with  the  owners  of  coasting  vessels.  Hard  work 
and  little  yield  is  the  rule  on  most  Massachusetts 
farms.  In  the  intervals  of  farm  work  he  managed  to 
print  "  Moll  Pitcher"  (of  which  more  hereafter)  and 
"  Mogg  Megone."  His  hero  "Mogg  "  he  has  styled 
"a  big  Injun  strutting  around  in  Walter  Scott's 
plaid."  He  says  that  for  his  early  poems  and  literary 
articles  he  received  absolutely  nothing,  with  the 
exception  of  a  few  dollars  from  the  "  Democratic  Re 
view  "  and  "  Buckingham's  New  England  Magazine," 
his  pronounced  views  on  slavery  making  his  name 
too  unpopular  for  a  publisher's  uses.  In  a  prefatory 
note  to  "  Moll  Pitcher,"  he  humorously  owns  up  to 
the  unremunerative  nature  of  his  literary  work  :  "I 
have  not  enough  of  the  poetical  in  my  disposition  to 
dream  of  converting,  by  an  alchemy  more  potent 
than  that  of  the  old  philosophers,  a  limping  couplet 
into  a  brace  of  doubloons,  or  a  rickety  stanza  into  a 
note  of  hand."  All  this  time,  it  is  to  be  understood 
that  he  was  by  no  means  indifferent  to  the  subject  of 
slavery,  but  was  earnestly  examining  it  in  all  its 
aspects.  Some  time  early  in  1833,  while  he  was  thus 
engaged,  Garrison,  as  if  divining  his  thoughts,  wrote 
as  follows  to  three  young  ladies  of  Haverhill: — 

"  You  excite  my  curiosity  and  interest  by  informing  me  that 
my  dearly  beloved  Whittier  is  a  friend  and  townsman  of  yours. 


THE    ANTI-SLAVERY    CONTEST.  63 

Can  we  not  induce  him  to  devote  his  brilliant  genius  more  to 
the  advancement  of  our  cause,  and  kindred  enterprises,  and 
less  to  the  creations  of  romance  and  fancy,  and  the  disturbing 
incidents  of  political  strife  ?  .  .  .  You  think  my  influence 
will  prevail  with  Whittier  more  than  yours.  I  think  otherwise. 
If  he  has  not  already  blotted  my  name  from  the  tablet  of  his 
memory,  it  is  because  his  magnanimity  is  superior  to  neglect. 
We  have  had  no  correspondence  whatever  for  more  than  a 
year  with  each  other  !  Does  this  look  like  friendship  between 
us  ?  And  yet  I  take  the  blame  all  to  myself.  He  is  not  a 
debtor  to  me — I  owe  him  many  letters.  .  .  .  Pray  secure 
his  forgiveness,  and  tell  him  that  my  love  to  him  is  as  strong 
as  was  that  of  David  to  Jonathan.  Soon  I  hope  to  send  him  a 
contrite  epistle,  and  I  know  he  will  return  a  generous  pardon."  l 

Presently,  as  if  in  response  to  the  appeal  in  this 
letter,  Whittier  publishes  at  his  own  expense,  in  June, 
1833,  his  "Justice  and  Expediency;  or,  Slavery  Con 
sidered  with  a  View  to  its  Rightful  and  Effectual 
Remedy,  Abolition."  An  edition  of  5,000  copies  was 
afterwards  issued  by  Lewis  Tappan,  for  gratuitous 
distribution.  Tappan  wrote  Whittier  a  very  kind 
letter  about  the  essay,  and  it  was  appreciatively 
reviewed  by  the  anti-slavery  editor,  Nathaniel  P. 
Rogers.  A  notice  of  it  in  a  Virginia  paper  called 
forth  two  long  and  noble  responses  from  its  author. 
They  were  published  in  the  "  Liberator,"  and  are 
included  in  the  latest  edition  of  his  prose  works.  In 
a  foot-note  to  the  pamphlet  Whittier  calls  the  atten 
tion  of  his  friends  to  "'Thoughts  on  Colonization,'  a 
very  able  and  eloquent  pamphlet  by  a  much-traduced 
and  noble-hearted  philanthropist,  William  L.  Garri 
son,  of  Boston."  Garrison  returns  the  compliment 


1  Life  of  Garrison,  i.  331. 


64  JOHN    G.    WHITTIER. 

in  a  little  paragraph  in  his  paper,  to  the  effect  that 
"  John  G.  Whittier,  of  Haverhill,  a  member  of  the 
Society  of  Friends,  and  a  gentleman  distinguished  as 
a  writer,  has  published  an  excellent  pamphlet  on  the 
subject  of  slavery.  .  .  .  Friend  Whittier  deserves 
to  be  called  the  Stuart  of  America." 

"  Justice  and  Expediency"  is  a  thorough  piece  of 
argument,  terribly  in  earnest,  abounding  in  italicised 
and  capitalized  sentences  (as  first  printed),  and  solemn 
appeals  to  the  religious  nature.  In  Great  Britain  the 
long  struggle  for  emancipation  in  the  West  Indies 
was  just  drawing  to  a  close,  and  the  writings  of  the 
British  anti-slavery  chiefs  were  drawn  upon  by  Whit 
tier  for  material  and  illustrations,  although  perhaps 
not  quite  so  tellingly  as  in  Mrs.  Child's  "Appeal," 
published  four  months  later  in  the  same  year.  A 
few  sentences  from  "  Justice  and  Expediency  "  will 
give  an  idea  of  the  treatment:— 

"  But  it  may  be  said  that  the  miserable  victims  of  the  sys 
tem  have  our  sympathies. 

"  Sympathy  ! — the  sympathy  of  the  Priest  and  the  Levite, 
looking  on,  and  acknowledging,  but  holding  itself  aloof  from 
mortal  suffering.  Can  such  hollow  sympathy  reach  the  broken 
of  heart,  and  does  the  blessing  of  those  who  are  ready  to  per 
ish  answer  it  ?  Does  it  hold  back  the  lash  from  the  slave,  or 
sweeten  his  bitter  bread  ? 

"Oh,  my  heart  is  sick — my  very  soul  is  weary  of  this  sympa 
thy — this  heartless  mockery  of  feeling.  .  .  . 

"No — let  the  TRUTH  on  this  subject — undisguised,  naked, 
terrible  as  it  is,  stand  out  before  us.  Let  us  no  longer  seek  to 
cover  it — let  us  no  longer  strive  to  forget  it — let  us  no  more 
dare  to  palliate  it.  ... 

"  Sisters,  daughters,  wives,  and  mothers,  your  influence  is 
felt  everywhere,  at  the  fireside,  and  in  the  halls  of  legislation, 


THE    ANTI-SLAVERY    CONTEST.  65 

surrounding,  like  the  all-encircling  atmosphere,  brother  and 
father,  husband  and  son !  And  by  your  love  of  them,  by  every 
holy  sympathy  of  your  bosoms,  by  every  mournful  appeal  which 
comes  up  to  you  from  hearts  whose  sanctuary  of  affections  has 
been  made  waste  and  desolate,  you  are  called  upon  to  exert  it 
in  the  cause  of  redemption  from  wrong  and  outrage.  .  .  . 

"  In  vain  you  enact  and  abrogate  your  tariffs  ;  in  vain  is  indi 
vidual  sacrifice,  or  sectional  concession.  The  accursed  thing 
is  with  us,  the  stone  of  stumbling  and  the  rock  of  offense 
remains.  Drag,  then,  the  Achan  into  light ;  and  let  national 
repentance  atone  for  national  sin.  .  .  . 

"  But  a  few  months  ago  we  were  on  the  verge  of  civil  war. 
.  .  .  The  danger  has  been  delayed  for  a  time  ;  this  bolt  has 
fallen  without  mortal  injury  to  the  Union,  but  the  cloud  from 
which  it  came  still  hangs  above  us,  reddening  with  the  ele 
ments  of  destruction." 

Soon  after  the  publication  of  "  Justice  and  Expe 
diency"  there  appeared  in  the  Haverhill  "Gazette" 
Whittier's  first  anti-slavery  poem, — the  lines  to  Gar 
rison,  "  Champion  of  those  who  groan  beneath 
oppression's  iron  hand," — a  poem  which  had,  how 
ever,  been  in  his  portfolio  since  1832,  and  which  was 
quickly  followed  by  "  Toussaint  L'Ouverture  "  and 
"  The  Slave-Ships,"  the  handsel  of  a  long  and  remark 
able  series  of  poems  of  freedom,  extending  over  a 
period  of  thirty  years,  during  which  the  stirring  music 
of  these  northern  pibrochs  never  ceased  to  be  heard. 

Whittier  has  now  unfurled  his  flag  and  taken  his 
place  in  the  ranks  of  freedom,  and  it  behooves  us  to 
ascend  to  some  elevated  point  and  sweep  the  horizon 
with  our  glass, — in  other  words,  get  some  idea  of 
the  situation,  appreciate  the  sacrifice  made,  under 
stand  the  obloquy  and  danger  undergone  by  the 
reformers,  the  sufferings  of  the  slave  and  the  attitude 
5 


66  JOHN    G.    WHITTIER. 

of  society  and  the  Church  toward  the  doctrine  of 
immediate  emancipation.  In  short,  I  purpose  to  fore 
cast  the  years,  and  briefly  touch  on  the  more  salient 
features  of  the  Abolition  struggle,  so  that  those  who 
were  not  of  it  may  better  understand  the  part  played 
by  Whittier  in  the  movement.  I  shall  then  give  an 
account  of  the  poet's  adventures  and  sufferings  as  a 
member  of  the  anti-slavery  band,  and  of  his  anti- 
slavery  poems  and  the  enthusiasm  of  humanity  they 
awakened  in  the  minds  of  all  true  men. 

In  brief,  the  situation  was  this:  The  nation  at  large 
was  lulling  a  guilty  conscience  with  the  music  of  the 
cotton-gin,  stopping  its  ears  against  the  languid  pro 
tests  and  half-forgotten  example  of  the  Quakers,  and 
paying  no  attention  at  all  to  the  timid  voice  of  Ben 
jamin  Lundy, — but  had  been  suddenly  startled  and 
angered  by  the  loud  voice  of  William  Lloyd  Garrison 
of  Massachusetts  calling  for  Immediate  Emancipa 
tion.  Garrison  had  been  imprisoned  in  Baltimore  for 
opposition  to  the  slave-trade,  and  a  price  of  $5,000  set 
on  his  head  by  the  Legislature  of  Georgia.  The 
"Liberator "  had  been  conducted  by  him  in  Boston 
for  two  years  and  a  half,  and  he  had  put  forth  a 
crushing  pamphlet  against  the  iniquitous  Coloniza 
tion  Society,  which,  with  full  apology  for  existing 
slavery,  and  cheerfully  recognizing  the  status  of  the 
slave  as  a  chattel,  was  filled  with  bitter  prejudice 
against  the  free  "  niggers,"  and  sought  their  unjust 
expulsion  from  the  country.  Finally,  the  school  of 
Prudence  Crandall,  established  in  Canterbury,  Con 
necticut,  for  the  education  of  young  colored  girls, 
after  a  long  struggle  against  insane  prejudice,  had  at 
last  been  closed  by  the  State  authorities. 


THE    ANTI-SLAVERY    CONTEST.  67 

Of  the  stainless  moral  integrity  of  Garrison,  by 
whose  side  Whittier  now  stood  bravely  forth,  there  can 
be  no  question.  That  to  Garrison  more  than  to 
any  other  single  individual  was  due  the  creation  of 
the  public  sentiment  that  made  possible  the  Eman 
cipation  Proclamation,  and  sustained  Congress  in 
the  passing  of  the  Constitutional  Amendment  forever 
abolishing  slavery  in  this  country,  it  seems  to  me 
fatuous  to  deny.  His  words  were  "  sparkles  hot  and 
seed  ethereal  "  dropped  into  the  moral  nature  of  the 
American  people,  to  kindle  there  an  undying  flame. 
In  half  a  dozen  years,  the  society  founded  by  him  in 
Boston  had  multiplied  to  eight  hundred,  three  hun 
dred  of  which  were  in  Ohio  alone,  and  one  of  these 
societies  numbered  four  thousand  members.  All  bear 
witness  to  the  purity  of  Garrison's  character,  his 
beautiful  domestic  life,  his  gay-heartedness,  and  his 
gentleness  and  moderation  in  private  conversation. 
Harriet  Martineau  deemed  him  to  be  "  one  of  God's 
nobility,"  "covered  all  over  with  the  stars  and  orders 
of  the  spiritual  realm."  It  is  related  of  Charles  Sum- 
ner  that  shortly  after  the  assault  upon  him  by  Brooks, 
and  while  the  wounds  on  his  head  were  yet  new  and  of 
a  dangerous  character,  and  his  physician  had  strictly 
charged  him  not  to  take  off  his  hat  out  of  doors, 
yet,  when  he  caught  sight  of  William  Lloyd  Garrison 
on  a  street  of  Boston,  he  took  off  his  hat  to  him,  and 
to  him  alone  of  all  he  met.  Intensely  positive  souls 
Garrison  attached  to  his  own  by  the  strongest  ties. 
But  people  who  did  not  know  him  personally  were 
incensed  by  the  violent  language  of  his  editorials  and 
speeches.  He  wrote  with  very  strong  ink,  his  words 
were  not  musk-scented  by  any  means,  and  the  lip  of 


68  JOHN    G.    WHITTIER. 

the  medicine-glass  he  offered  the  South  was  not 
smeared  with  honey.  Like  most  journalists  of  that 
day,  he  could  speak  daggers  and  make  every  word 
stab.  He  was  almost  as  headstrong  in  his  attempts 
to  defend  and  enforce  his  doctrines  of  Perfectionism, 
Non-Resistance,  Non-Political  Action,  and  Disunion, 
as  in  his  battle  against  the  slave-power.  He  caused 
a  split  in  the  ranks  of  the  Abolitionists,  alienated 
many  stanch  friends,  and  poured  his  scorn  upon  such 
advocates  of  gradual  and  conciliatory  anti-slavery 
measures  as  Dr.  William  Ellery  Channing  and  Henry 
Ward  Beecher. 

Now,  there  are  thousands  of  Southern  gentlemen 
who  were  as  humane  in  their  treatment  of  their 
slaves  as  ever  was  Thomas  Jefferson  or  George 
Washington.  They  did  not  therefore  quite  fancy 
being  described  in  the  columns  of  the  "  Liberator," 
in  staring  capitals,  as  THIEVES,  ROBBERS,  and 
MAN-STEALERS,  "  man-hyenas,"  "fiends  in  hu 
man  shape,"  "assassins  of  bleeding  humanity." 
Vituperative  epithets  such  as  these  bespatter  all  the 
early  pages  of  the  "  Liberator."  For  example,  allud 
ing  editorially  to  an  article  in  the  "  Colonization 
Herald  "  of  Philadelphia,  written  just  after  the  burn 
ing  by  a  mob  of  the  Abolitionists'  splendid  new 
Pennsylvania  Hall,  the  "  Liberator "  speaks  of  its 
"brutally  contemptuous  and  fiendishly  malignant" 
language,  its  "  vulgar  billingsgate,"  and  thinks  that 
"the  man  who  can  write  such  an  article  is  a  ruffian 
capable  of  any  crime."  But  now  the  article,  as 
reprinted  on  the  same  page,  contains  no  billingsgate 
whatever,  and  no  fiendish  language  :  it  is  only 
quietly  satirical.  The  clergy  the  "  Liberator"  styles 
"  a  brotherhood  of  thieves."  A  certain  Dr.  Baird  is 


THE    ANTI-SLAVERY    CONTEST.  69 

delicately  alluded  to  as  "  this  lickspittle  of  European 
despotism  and  aristocracy."  In  reference  to  Rev. 
William  S.  Plummer,  D.D.,  a  slaveholder  of  Virginia, 
the  "Liberator's"  Philadelphia  correspondent  re 
marks,  "  Can  there  be  a  more  detestable,  a  more 
infamous,  and  more  diabolical  character  on  earth 
than  a  professedly  man-stealing  minister?"  Caleb 
Gushing  is  styled  by  Garrison  "  an  impudent,  canting 
demagogue,"  "  a  fool,"  "  a  political  adventurer,"  "a 
shallow  sophist,"  "a  dissimulator,"  and  "a  recreant 
son  of  Massachusetts"  ("Liberator,"  Feb.  5  and  19,  '58). 
Nathan  Hale,  father  of  Edward  Everett  Hale,  and  edi 
tor  of  the  Boston  "  Advertiser,"  wrote  some  temper 
ate  and  not  unkindly  articles  on  the  evils  of  the  inter 
marriage  of  distinct  types,  /.  e.,  on  race  degeneration 
(with  reference  to  the  amalgamation  laws  of  Massa 
chusetts);  whereupon  Garrison  bestows  upon  him 
some  tender  and  charitable  appellations, — as,  "  the 
twaddling,  cowardly,  doughfaced  editor  of  the 
'Advertiser"  ("Liberator,"  xv.  i);  "impertinent 
intermeddler,"  "impudent,"  "shameless,"  "de 
praved";  "this  man  aspires  to  the  level  of  respect 
able  society,  though  in  spirit  he  seems  to  be  as 
degraded  as  the  lowest  frequenters  of  Billingsgate"; 
"in  the  struggle  for  liberty,  he  will  distinctively 
espouse  the  side  of  villainy"  ("Liberator,"  Feb.  24,  '43). 
However,  the  "  Liberator's "  intemperate  lan 
guage,  although  regretted  by  the  more  judicious  of 
the  Abolitionists,  was  by  no  means  disliked  by  all. 
And,  in  truth,  it  may  be  doubted  whether  mild  lan 
guage  would  have  excited  any  attention.  Language 
both  fierce  and  loud  was  needed  to  pierce  to  the  con 
science  of  a  people  whose  ears  were  stopped  with 


70  JOHN    G.    WHITTIER. 

Southern  cotton.  And  then  observe,  please,  that  the 
Abolitionists  got  rough  language  as  well  as  gave  it. 
Throw  a  scoop-net  back  into  almost  any  part  of  the 
anti-slavery  brine,  and  you  will  fetch  up  grewsome 
proofs  of  this,  live  and  quivering.  Here,  for  example: 
In  one  of  the  martyrical  lecturing  tours  of  apostles 
Stephen  Foster  and  Abby  Kelley  they  had  been 
stoned  by  the  boys  of  a  certain  town;  the  local  paper 
blames  the  boys  for  putting  themselves  on  a  level 
with  "  most  consummate  blackguards."  If  Saint 
Stephen  called  them  robbers  and  nigger-baby  thieves 
and  their  ministers  servants  and  ambassadors  of  the 
devil,  they  retorted  in  kind.  Abby  and  Stephen 
charge  two  cents  for  the  privilege  of  signing  a  peti 
tion  of  theirs  for  the  dissolution  of  the  Union;  the 
local  paper  exclaims,  "  Dissolve  the  Union  ! — may  the 
heart  that  could  conceive  the  thought  be  torn  from 
its  resting-place,  and  thrown  to  the  dogs  !  "  The 
Abolitionists'  tongues  are  likened  to  "  serpents'  fangs 
bedabbled  in  corruption's  foulest  dregs."  ' 

Abolition  was  a  religion  to  those  who  believed  in 
it,  a  sublime  consecration,  a  solemn  sacrament.  They 
called  each  other  brother  and  sister,  and  sang  their 
Abolition  hymns  with  all  the  fervor  of  Methodist  re 
vivalists.  Said  Miss  Martineau,  after  her  first  acquaint 
ance  with  the  Abolitionists:  "  Ordinary  social  life  is 
spoiled  for  them;  but  another  which  is  far  better  has 
grown  up  among  them.  ...  A  just  survey  of  the 
whole  world  can  leave  little  doubt  that  the  Abolition 
ists  of  the  United  States  are  the  greatest  people  now 
living  and  moving  in  it."  2  So  Lydia  Maria  Child 


Liberator,  Oct.  17,  1845. 
Westminster  Review,  xxxii.  59  (1839). 


THE    ANTI-SLAVERY    CONTEST.  7 1 

says,  somewhere  in  one  of  her  published  letters,  that 
socially  she  lost  nothing  by  her  advocacy  of  Aboli 
tionism,  for  she  made  thereby  the  acquaintance  of 
the  noblest  people,  morally  and  intellectually,  that 
she  had  ever  known.  Miss  Martineau  especially  notes 
the  "  bright  faces "  and  continual  cheerfulness  and 
courage  of  the  Abolitionists.  Wendell  Phillips  said 
that  Garrison's  life  was  the  happiest  he  ever  knew, 
and  all  of  Mr.  Garrison's  friends  say  the  same.  So 
Oliver  Johnson  is  called  by  his  friend,  John  Chadwick, 
"  the  happiest  of  men." 

Of  course  the  movement  brought  out  the  long 
haired  fraternity  and  the  cranks  ("  long-heels," 
the  Boston  boys  dubbed  them),  but  in  no  greater 
number  than  in  the  case  of  every  unpopular  moral 
reform.1  The  justness  of  a  cause  is  not  impeached 


1  Oliver  Johnson  tells  an  amusing  story  of  good  Abigail  Folsom, 
an  innocent  monomaniac  on  the  subject  of  free  speech,  who  used 
to  annoy  anti-slavery  meetings  by  her  grotesque  interruptions,  but 
was  respected  for  her  generous  gifts  to  deserving  folk.  She  was 
very  witty,  and  was  always  roundly  cheered  by  the  hostile  charac 
ters  that  usually  fringed  the  anti-slavery  meetings.  On  one  occa 
sion  when,  seated  in  a  chair,  she  was  being  gently  carried  out  of  a 
meeting  by  Wendell  Phillips,  Oliver  Johnson,  and  another,  she 
said  to  the  crowd  in  the  aisle,  "  I  'm  better  off  than  my  Master  was: 
he  had  but  one  ass  to  ride,  I  have  three  to  carry  me." 

Mr.  Whittier  has  recently  told  another  story  which  matches 
this.  They  were  having  a  stormy  anti-slavery  meeting  in  New 
York.  Difference  of  opinion  threatened  to  break  up  the  meeting. 
But  it  so  happened  that  near  each  other  on  the  platform  were  Gar 
rison,  whose  head  was  very  bald;  William  A.  Burleigh,  whose 
hair  fell  in  heavy  masses  to  his  shoulders  ;  and  a  coal-black  negro. 
"  All  at  once,"  says  Mr.  Whittier,  "  during  a  brief  lull,  some  man 


72  JOHN    G.    WHITTIER. 

by  the  imperfections  of  its  defenders.  There  were 
all  kinds  of  apples  in  the  Abolition  barrel.  There 
was  plenty  of  raving  fanaticism  in  the  brains  of  the 
anti-slavery  lecturers,  and  a  plenteous  lack  of  judg 
ment  and  high  breeding.  On  the  one  hand,  you  have 
the  fiery  indignation,  tempered  by  courtesy  and  char 
ity,  of  such  men  as  Whittier,  and  such  women  as 
Lucy  Stone,  the  Grimke  sisters,  and  Lucretia  Mott; 
and,  on  the  other,  such  fanatical  apostles  as  poor, 
meek,  non-resistant  Stephen  S.  Foster,  and  brawny 
Parker  Pillsbury, — "  reviled  and  pelted  Stephen" 
(who  became  thoroughly  familiar  with  the  odor  of 
rotten  eggs  and  the  nature  of  brickbats  and  sole- 
leather),  and  "  brown,  broad-shouldered  Pillsbury," 
whose  book,  full  of  shrieks  and  superlatives  and  de 
nunciations,  on  the  anti-slavery  crusade,  as  waged 
in  the  schoolhouses  and  churches  of  country  towns 
by  himself  and  brethren,  must  be  read  by  all  who 
want  to  know  what  Abolitionism  was  in  all  its  phases. 
A  little  incident  in  the  career  of  one  of  these  minor 
prophets  of  the  cause,  Stephen  Foster,  will  help  us  to 
understand  why  he  was  "  chucked  "  into  lamp  closets 
and  kicked  out  of  churches  so  often.  He  was  one 
evening  sitting  on  the  platform  waiting  for  his  audi 
ence,  when  a  woman  came  up  to  the  front  seat  with  a 
child  in  her  arms.  Foster  pointed  his  finger  at  her, 


in  the  back  part  of  the  hall  shouted  at  the  top  of  his  voice,  '  Mr. 
Speaker!  Mr.  Speaker!  I  've  only  a  word  to  say.  I  want  that 
negro  to  shave  Burleigh  and  make  a  wig  for  Garrison!'  The 
whole  house  immediately  broke  forth  into  roars  of  laughter,  which 
had  the  effect  to  avert  all  trouble,  which  had  seemed  imminent, 
and  good  humor  was  restored."  As  Mr.  Whittier  finished  relating 
the  incident  he  laughed  heartily  until  the  tears  ran  down  his  cheeks. 


THE   ANTI-SLAVERY    CONTEST.  73 

and  said  to  the  audience,  "  There  are  babies  in  the 
South  stolen  from  the  cradle  much  whiter  than  the 
one  that  lady  holds  in  her  arms."  The  poor  creature 
sank  down  abashed  and  terror-stricken,  as  all  eyes 
were  bent  upon  her  to  see  what  kind  of  a  black  child 
she  had  given  birth  to.1  Is  it  any  wonder  that  when 
sound  eggs  were  worth  two  cents,  rotten  ones  were 
worth  four  cents  apiece  for  certain  Abolitionists' 
heads  ? 

I  have  unwillingly  dwelt  upon  the  darker  side  of 
the  Abolition  movement  in  order  to  make  it  clear 
that,  when  Whittier  espoused  the  cause  of  the  slave, 
he  had  counted  the  cost,  and  knew  that  he  was  bury 
ing  all  hope  of  political  preferment  and  literary  gains. 
Those  who  gave  themselves  to  the  work  knew  not 
but  that  it  might  be  for  a  lifetime.  To  be  shunned 
and  spat  upon  by  society,  mobbed  in  public,  and 
injured  in  one's  business, — this  was  what  it  meant  to 
become  an  Abolitionist.  When  Miss  Martineau 
avowed  her  sympathy  with  them,  society  shut  its 
doors  in  her  face.  When  Longfellow  put  forth  his 
little  pamphlet  of  poems  on  slavery,  weak  and  harm 
less  as  they  were,  the  editor  of  "  Graham's  Magazine  " 
wrote  to  'him  to  offer  excuses  for  the  brevity  of  a 
guarded  notice  of  the  poems,  saying  that  the  word 
"  slavery  "  was  never  allowed  to  appear  in  a  Phila 
delphia  periodical,  and  that  the  publisher  of  the 
magazine  had  objected  to  have  even  the  name  of  the 
book  appear  in  his  pages.  This  recalls  the  notorious 
mutilations  made  in  foreign  books  republished  in 
America  by  the  American  Tract  Society.  Several  of 


Liberator,  Oct.  10,  1845. 


74  JOHN    G.    WHITTIER. 

their  books  were  "doctored"  by  cutting  out  the 
word  "  slave"  and  other  matter,  and  the  insertion  of 
harmless  equivalents  that  would  give  no  offense  to 
slaveholders.  See  Pillsbury's  "Acts  of  the  Anti- 
slavery  Apostles,"  where  the  details  are  given.  Allu 
sion  only  can  be  made  to  a  few  of  the  innumerable 
persecutions  endured  by  the  friends  of  the  black  race. 
How  Lydia  Maria  Child  was  deprived  of  the  use  of 
the  Athenaeum  library  in  Boston,  because  the  first 
use  she  had  made  of  it  was  to  prepare  her  "  Appeal "; 
how  Dr.  Follen  was  deprived  of  his  professorship  in 
Harvard  College  for  his  brave  espousal  ot  Abolition 
ism  ;  how  Prudence  Crandall's  schoolhouse  was 
defiled  with  filth,  and  its  windows  broken;  how 
Arthur  Tappan's  house  was  sacked  and  his  life  threat 
ened;  how  Dr.  Reuben  Crandall  (teacher  of  botany 
in  Washington,  D.  C.,  and  brother  of  Prudence  Cran 
dall),  for  having,  at  his  own  request,  lent  to  a  white 
citizen  a  copy  of  Whittier's  "  Justice  and  Expedi 
ency,"  was  kept  in  the  damp  city  prison  for  eight 
months,  until  the  seeds  of  consumption  were  sown, 
and  his  life  made  a  sacrifice  ;  how  Amos  Dresser  was 
flogged  in  the  public  square  of  Nashville,  and  his 
fellow-student  of  Lane  Seminary,  the  eloquent  Marius 
R.  Robinson,  was  dragged  from  his  bed  at  night,  and 
tarred  and  feathered  by  ruffians, — all  these  things  are 
matters  of  history. 

But  those  of  the  faithful  Abolition  band  who  still 
survive  have  had  ample  revenge.  Looked  upon  then 
as  the  scum  of  the  earth,  they  are  now  regarded  as 
heroes  and  martyrs.  Stone  in  those  days  was  vio 
lently  applied  to  their  persons  :  to-day  it  is  used  to 
carve  their  statues  and  busts.  Brickbats  were  then 


THE    ANTI-SLAVERY    CONTEST.  75 

employed  against  them  as  a  posteriori  arguments:  they 
are  now  used  for  such  objects  as  erecting  a  $200,000 
hall  to  the  memory  of  Wendell  Phillips.  Frederick 
Douglass  was  at  that  time  a  fugitive  slave  hunted  by 
bloodhounds:  recently  he  was  United  States  Minister 
to  Hayti.  A  "  nigger  "  then  was  deemed  a  soulless 
ape,  a  malodorous  beast  of  burden:  to-day  a  monu 
ment  to  the  black  man  Crispus  Attucks  stands  on 
Boston  Common.  The  very  community  that  regarded 
Garrison  as  an  intolerable  nuisance  made  him  a  pres 
ent  of  $30,000;  and  he  and  Whittier  lived  to  see  them 
selves  regarded,  with  John  Brown  and  Abraham  Lin 
coln,  as  the  saviours  of  the  colored  race,  and  to  receive, 
by  ovations  and  public  letters,  the  grateful  reverence 
of  that  rapidly  rising  and  affectionate  class  of  Ameri 
can  citizens.  When  the  first  number  of  the  "  Liber 
ator  "  was  issued,  it  was  a  deadly  crime  to  teach  a 
negro  to  read  or  to  write;  but  since  the  year  1865 
more  than  fifty  million  dollars  have  been  expended 
in  the  education  of  Southern  negroes,  and  in  1888 
there  were  fifteen  thousand  primary  schools  and  some 
seventy  academies,  colleges,  and  professional  schools 
in  the  South,  established  for  the  education  of  the 
colored  race.  The  colored  people  now  edit  over  one 
hundred  and  fifty  newspapers.  As  for  the  opponents 
of  the  Abolitionists,  they  are  now  the  obscure  and 
despised.  Whittier  says,  in  a  pleasant  rhymed  epistle 
to  his  fellow-bard  John  Pierpont, — 

"  Where  now  are  all  the  '  unco  good/ 
The  Canaan-cursing  '  Brotherhood,' 
The  mobs  they  raised,  the  storms  they  brewed, 
And  pulpit  thunder  ? 


76  JOHN    G.    WHITTIER. 

Sheer  sunk  like  Pharaoh's  multitude ; 
They  've  all  '  gone  under  ! '"  l 

Some  of  Whittier's  strongest  poems  (for  stern  sar 
casm  and  ironical  rebuke)  were  inspired  by  the  oppo 
sition  of  the  canting  pro-slavery  clergy,  North  and 
South.  That  for  many  years  after  the  anti-slavery 
agitation  had  begun  the  American  Church  was  the 
bulwark  of  slavery,  has  been  proved  again  and  again 
by  such  writers  as  Charles  K.  Whipple,  Oliver  John 
son,  Parker  Pillsbury,  and  the  Garrison  brothers. 
Nothing  surprised  William  Lloyd  Garrison  more 
than  the  discovery  of  this  fact.  A  hired  priesthood 
has  often  been  the  conservator  of  the  popular  will 
If  the  pulpits  had  been  occupied  by  unsalaried  speak 
ers, — as  with  the  Quakers, — the  Abolitionists  would 
not  have  encountered  a  hundredth  part  of  the  oppo 
sition  they  did.  Some  of  the  preachers,  however, 
were  on  the  right  side  from  the  start, — Beriah  Green, 
Moses  Thacher,  Amos  A.  Phelps  ;  Dr.  Samuel  H. 
Cox  and  J.  R.  W.  Sloane  of  New  York  City  ;  John 
Rankin,  William  H.  Furness,  and  others.2  The 
clergy  as  a  body  wheeled  into  line  after  a  time.  As 
early  as  1845,  one  hundred  and  seventy  ministers  of 
Massachusetts  signed  a  protest  against  slavery,  which 


1  Liberator,  April  28,  '65;  not  reprinted. 

2  I    am  glad   to  remember  that  the  house  of  my  father,  Rev. 
William  Sloane  Kennedy,  of  Sandusky,  in  the  Western   Reserve, 
was  a  station  on  the  Underground  Railroad.     One  of  my  earliest 
recollections  is  that  of  seeing  a  group  of  fugitive  slaves,  black  as 
coal,  standing  in  our  wood-shed  waiting  for  their  breakfast, — and 
we  children  enjoined  for  our  lives  not  to  mention  the  matter  to 
anyone, 


THE    ANTI-SLAVERY    CONTEST.  77 

had  been  drawn  up  by  James  Freeman  Clarke.1 
Whittier  tells  of  a  minister  in  the  old  town  of  New- 
bury,  Massachusetts,  who  startled  and  shamed  his 
brother-ministers,  who  were  zealously  preaching 
the  enforcement  of  the  Fugitive  Slave  Law,  by  draw 
ing  up  for  them  a  form  of  prayer  for  use  while  engaged 
in  catching  runaway  slaves. 


The  record  of  the  Quakers  on  the  slavery  o^sti 
in  Abolition  times  is  not  one  for  their  body  as  a  whole 
to  be  proud  of.  They  had  fallen  away  from  the  high 
position  they  occupied  nearly  a  century  previous, 
when  they  had  voluntarily  freed  all  their  slaves,  and 
were  become  as  worldly  and  selfish  as  the  other 
churches.  Having  removed  slavery  from  among 
themselves,  they  felt  no  call  to  interfere  with  the  con 
science  of  Southerners  in  the  matter,  especially  as 
their  wealth  was  acquired  largely  by  Southern  trade; 
and  Daniel  Webster  could  boast,  without  fear  of  con 
tradiction,  that  he  had  the  support  of  the  sober  and 
"  respectable  "  part  of  the  Society  of  Friends  in  his 
action  in  support  of  the  Fugitive  Slave  Law.  Yet  the 
work  accomplished  by  such  ardent  anti-slavery  peo 
ple  as  the  Grimke  sisters,  Lucretia  Mott,  John  Ken- 
rick,  Thomas  Shipley,  Lindley  Coates,  and  John 
Greenleaf  Whittier  atones  for  much  that  is  hard  to, 
forgive  in  the  attitude  of  the  Quakers  toward  slavery 
at  that  time.2  And  one  is  glad  to  remember  the  deed 


1  See  his  "  Anti-slavery   Days,"  p.   131.     The   protest,  with  all 
the  names,  is  in  the  "  Liberator,"  Oct.  10,  '45. 

2  A   pleasant   picture   of   the   domestic   life   of  an   anti-slavery 
Quaker  family  during  Abolition  days  is  given  by  Lillie  B.  Chace 
Wyman  in  the  "  Atlantic  Monthly,"  August,  1889. 


78  JOHN    G.    WHITTIER. 

of  the  brilliant  philosophical  writer  and  wealthy  man 
ufacturer,  Rowland  G.  Hazard  of  Rhode  Island,  a 
Quaker  by  birth,  who  in  1841,  being  in  New  Orleans, 
obtained,  by  great  effort  and  in  the  face  of  threats, 
the  liberation  of  one  hundred  free  colored  men  who 
belonged  to  ships  from  the  North,  and  had  been  placed 
in  the  chain-gang  as  slaves. 

The  system  of  slavery  was  atrocious,  Thomas  Car- 
lyle  to  the  contrary  notwithstanding.  "  Enslave  but 
a  single  human  being/'said  Garrison,  "  and  the  liberty 
of  the  world  is  put  in  peril."  And  another  said, 
"  Slavery  has  a  guilt  the  blackness  of  which  can  never 
be  painted  except  by  a  pencil  dipped  in  the  midnight 
of  the  bottomless  pit."  To  deprive  a  human  being  of 
self-respect,  to  cut  the  houghs  of  his  manhood,  to 
regard  him  as  a  beast  of  burden  to  be  fed  on  a  peck 
of  corn  a  week  and  occasionally  given  a  shirt  of  coarse 
bagging  and  a  pair  of  trousers  to  hide  his  nakedness; 
to  make  of  a  woman  a  breeding-animal,  and  forbid 
her  the  rite  of  marriage;  to  tear  children  from  their 
mother's  knees  to  be  carried  off  where  they  would 
never  see  them  again;  to  whip  a  human  being  to 
death,  to  tear  out  his  nails  by  the  roots,  brand  him, 
cut  the  tendons  of  his  heels,  and  burn  him  to  death,1 
— not  very  pleasant  things  these,  and  not  exactly  cal- 


1  This  seems  to  be  a  favorite  amusement  with  lynchers  of  the 
negro  in  the  South.  The  case  of  the  negro  Mclntosh  who  was 
burned  to  death  in  slow  agony  by  the  whole  street  populace  of  St. 
Louis,  in  1836,  is  well  known.  In  the  month  of  September, 
1889,  the  New  York  "  Nation"  copied  from  a  Southern  paper  an 
account  of  the  recent  burning  to  death  of  a  negro  lad,  for  the  crime 
of  rape.  There  are  on  record  other  cases  of  negro-burnings. 


THE    ANTI-SLAVERY    CONTEST.  79 

culated  to  make  Northern  lovers  of  freedom  moderate 
in  their  opposition. 

And  yet  there  was  a  sunny  side  to  slavery.  Human 
nature  is  at  heart  good,  and  much  the  same  every 
where.  The  writer,  in  looking  over  a  manuscript 
lecture  of  his  father's  (written  in  1858,  shortly  after 
his  return  from  a  trip  to  New  Orleans,  whither  he 
had  gone  as  a  delegate  to  the  General  Assembly  of 
the  Presbyterian  Church),  finds  several  statements 
that  furnish  interesting  testimony  to  the  general 
humanity  of  the  slaveholders.  Speaking  as  one 
known  to  be  anti-slavery  in  his  sentiments,  he  yet 
says:  "A  traveler  in  the  South  will  learn  that  there 
is  vastly  more  creature  comfort  and  contentment 
amongst  the  mass  of  the  slaves  than  he  supposed. 
Their  general  appearance  gives  no  indication  of 
oppression."  (Opinion  based  upon  observations  in 
several  cities.)  He  attended  several  slave  sales,  and 
found  no  exhibition  of  brutality,  no  inhumanity. 
The  physical  condition  of  the  blacks  was  fine:  "  Their 
strict  regimen  and  discipline  and  their  restraint  from 
vice  tend  to  develop  and  perfect  their  physiques." 
"  Had  we  been  at  the  South  and  the  planters  at  the 
North,  unquestionably  we  should  have  been  the 
slaveholders,  and  they  the  Abolitionists.  In  habits, 
appearance,  intellectual  culture,  morals,  and  religion 
they  are  our  equals;  in  hospitality  and  liberality,  our 
superiors." 

There  can  be  no  doubt  that  kind  treatment  of  the 
slave  was  the  rule  in  nearly  all  parts  of  the  South. 
The  Abolitionists  never  forgave  Dr.  Nehemiah 
Adams,  of  Boston,  for  revealing,  in  his  "  South-Side 
View  of  Slavery,"  the  brighter  side  of  the  institution; 


80  JOHN    G.    WHITTIER. 

and  yet  he  did  not  refuse  to  give  the  darker  side  also. 
I  am  not  defending  the  clerical  sophistry  by  which 
Dr.  Adams  shored  up  the  institution,  trying  to  put 
out  a  volcano  with  a  shovelful  of  Northern  snow;  but 
any  one  who  has  seen  a  good  deal  of  negro  life  in 
the  South  cannot  help  having  his  risibilities  excited 
by  the  opening  pages  of  Dr.  Adams's  book,  in  which 
he  tells  how,  on  going  South  for  the  first  time,  with 
fearful  apprehensions,  expecting  to  meet  on  all  sides 
the  painful  evidences  of  suffering, — chains,  manacles, 
the  whip,  and  looks  of  woe  and  despair, — he  landed 
at  Savannah,  and,  instead  of  finding  negroes  on 
bended  knees,  with  manacled  hands  raised  implor 
ingly,  and  saying,  "Am  not  I  a  man  and  a  brother?" 
— a  common  picture  on  anti-slavery  broadsides  and 
tracts, — he  found  on  the  wharf  a  lot  of  blacks  so 
polite,  jolly,  and  full  of  catching  "hi-his!" — lifting 
one  leg  as  they  laughed — that  he  began  to  laugh  with 
them  in  spite  of  himself.  He  then  goes  on  to  tell  of 
the  pleasant  relations  existing  between  master  and 
slave,  as  he  noticed  them  in  traveling  about. 

The  most  deeply  rooted  prejudice  encountered  by 
the  Abolitionists  was  "  colorphobia."  It  was  some 
thing  that  could  not  be  argued  with.  The  cutting 
irony  of  Garrison's  Shorter  Catechism  fell  upon  deaf 
ears  : — 

"  Why  are  slaves  not  fit  for  freedom  ?  Because  they  are 
black.  Why  does  the  Bible  justify  American  slavery  ?  Be 
cause  its  victims  are  black.  Why  are  the  slaves  contented  and 
happy  ?  Because  they  are  black.  Why  are  they  not  created 
in  the  image  of  God  ?  Because  they  are  black." 

Negrophobia  is,  even  now,  almost  as  strong  among 


THE   ANTI-SLAVERY    CONTEST.  8l 

the  vulgar  class  of  whites  as  it  was  twenty-five  years 
ago.  We  have  educated  colored  people  now  by  the 
thousand — singers,  authors,  judges,  journalists,  states 
men  even — both  North  and  South.  It  matters  not: 
the  least  strain  of  darker  blood  stamps  them  as  of 
the  pariah  caste.  Europeans  laugh  at  this  color- 
nervousness,  and  it  is  about  time  we  had  got  rid  of 
it.  A  few  years  ago,  Prof.  Richard  J.  Greener  and 
Mr.  Robert  A.  Terrell,  of  Washington  (both  colored), 
sons  of  Harvard  College,  wished  to  join  the  Washing 
ton  Club  of  Harvard  graduates  :  they  were  black 
balled  on  account  of  their  color,  so  it  is  said.  And 
yet,  in  1889,  the  Senior  Class  of  Harvard  College 
elected  a  gifted  black  man,  Clement  H.  Morgan,  to 
the  class  oratorship, — the  highest  honor  at  its  dis 
posal.  This  is  encouraging,  even  if  it  was  the  result 
of  ballot-and-nomination  cabals,  as  I  learned  at  Har 
vard.  In  the  same  year,  also,  Yale  students  chose  a 
colored  man  for  one  of  the  college  base-ball  nine. 
Not  long  ago,  I  stood  in  a  car  of  the  Old  Colony 
Railroad  in  Boston,  waiting  to  see  a  friend  off  for 
New  York.  The  seats  were  all  taken  but  one,  and 
that  was  partly  occupied  by  a  mulatto  lady,  with  fine 
massive,  intellectual  face,  and  an  expression  of  ma 
tronly  dignity.  Nobody  would  share  the  seat  with 
her.  One  white  boor  stood  a  moment  eying  the 
seat  wistfully;  she  moved  her  package  ;  he  walked 
away  without  a  word  of  thanks.  The  face  of  the 
lady  only  took  on  a  look  of  deeper  patience  and  suf 
fering.  She  was  used  to  such  insults. 

A    few    years    ago    a    beautiful    and     intelligent 
lady  was  attending  a  private  school    in    Pittsburg. 
She  stood  for  a  year  at  the  head  of  the  school,  and 
6 


82  JOHN    G.    WHITTIER. 

was  the  favorite  pupil  of  the  master.  One  day  it 
transpired  that  she  had  a  few  drops  of  unsuspected 
African  blood  in  her  veins:  she  was  at  once  expelled 
by  the  poltroon  pedagogue.1 

Again,  for  the  heinous  crime  of  allowing  white  and 
colored  students  to  be  educated  together  within  its 
walls,  the  Atlanta  University  was  refused  its  annual 
appropriation  of  $8,000  by  the  Georgia  Legislature,  a 
short  time  ago,  and  this  despicable  act  was  heartily 
approved  by  the  Southern  press. 

As  the  negroes  move  upward  in  the  social  scale, 
they  feel  social  ostracism  more  keenly.  In  the  South, 
the  Jim  Crow  car  is  still  in  existence.  No  negro  is  al 
lowed  to  ride  first-class.  A  colored  preacher  in  South 
Carolina  not  long  ago  brought  complaint  against  a 
Southern  railroad  before  the  Interstate  Railway 
Commission  for  being  ejected  from  a  first-class  car; 
negro  murders  and  riots  are  common  at  the  South; 
the  negroes  are  refusing  to  work  for  the  whites,  and 
the  relations  between  the  two  races  are  strained  to 
breaking  in  some  sections.  Some  of  the  leaders  of 
the  negroes  advise  emigration,  and  in  their  journals 
utter  foolish  threats  against  the  "  white  trash,"  who 
are  their  bitterest  enemies.  At  the  celebration  of  the 
twenty-fifth  anniversary  of  the  Emancipation  Procla 
mation  in  Boston,  Bishop  H.  M.  Turner,  the  first 
colored  chaplain  commissioned  in  the  United  States 
Army,  said,  "  Twenty-five  years  have  made  us  more 
enlightened  than  any  freed  people  on  the  face  of  the 
earth;  another  twenty-five  years,  and  the  white  man 
will  tremble  at  the  injustice  he  has  done  us."  And 


1  The  Forum,  October,  1889. 


THE    ANTI-SLAVERY    CONTEST.  83 

the  Hon,  George  P.  Downing,  of  Newport,  Rhode 
Island,  said:  "  For  sixty  years  I  have  felt  myself  to 
be  the  victim  of  injustice.  Although  I  have  never 
committed  any  crime,  I  have  never  seemed  to  breathe 
the  free  air  of  my  native  country.  ...  A  fire  of 
dissatisfaction  and  grief  burns  in  my  breast.  The 
conservative  speech  I  am  now  making  would  endan 
ger  my  life  in  some  States.  While  my  son  is  spurned 
from  your  counting-room,  your  art-museum,  and 
your  church,  and  while  my  wife  is  forbidden  to  ride 
with  you  in  the  railway  car,  while  my  countrymen 
are  murdered  in  the  South,  can  you  expect  me  to  be 
mild  ?  "  Evidently,  the  work  of  Abolitionism  is  not 
over  yet.  There  are  wrongs  demanding  its  attention 
nearer  home  than  Africa,  and  quite  as  cruel  as  the 
Arab  slave-trade  (if  more  subtle  and  more  hidden 
from  view).  A  leading  colored  man  of  this  country, 
having  recently  returned  from  Europe,  where  no  in 
vidious  and  galling  discriminations  were  made  against 
him  on  account  of  his  color,  feels  the  change  to  our 
bigoted  atmosphere  so  bitterly  that  he  has  made  calls 
on  a  large  number  of  the  leading  men  of  his  race  in 
the  vicinity  of  New  York,  and  secured  their  coopera 
tion  in  the  formation  of  a  national  defensive  league 
of  all  the  colored  people  of  America.  It  is  clearly  the 
duty  and  privilege  of  the  surviving  Abolitionists  and 
their  children  to  support  them  in  such  steps  as  this. 
It  is  a  curious  fact  that  the  old  colonization  scheme 
is  coming  to  the  front  again,  and  is  by  no  means 
dead  and  buried,  as  Garrison  thought.  The  plan  is 
advocated  not  only  by  some  of  the  blacks  themselves, 
but  by  Senator  Wade  Hampton  and  others.  In  Texas 
a  plan  was  recently  broached  (approved  of  and  sub- 


84  JOHN    G.    WHITTIER. 

sidized  by  the  Mexican  Government)  to  colonize  the 
blacks  of  Texas  in  Vera  Cruz,  Mexico,  for  the  raising 
of  cotton  and  sugar-cane. 

To  return  now  to  Whittier.  He  first  saw  service  in 
the  field  as  one  of  the  secretaries  of  the  Philadelphia 
Anti-slavery  Convention  of  '33.  Portions  of  his  own 
graphic  sketch  of  the  meeting  cannot  be  condensed 
or  restated  without  loss.  I  shall  therefore  without 
apology  make  somewhat  copious  quotations,  filling 
in  the  picture  with  an  incident  or  two  from  Samuel 
J.  May's  "  Recollections"  and  other  sources: — 

"  In  the  gray  twilight  of  a  chill  day  of  late  November,"  says 
Whittier,  "  forty  years  ago,  a  dear  friend  of  mine,  residing  in 
Boston,  made  his  appearance  at  the  old  farm-house  in  East 
Haverhill.  He  had  been  deputed  by  the  Abolitionists  of  the 
city — William  Lloyd  Garrison,  Samuel  E.  Sewall,  and  others — 
to  inform  me  of  my  appointment  as  a  delegate  to  the  Conven 
tion  about  to  be  held  in  Philadelphia  for  the  formation  of  an 
American  Anti-slavery  Society,  and  to  urge  upon  me  the  neces 
sity  of  my  attendance. 

"  Few  words  of  persuasion,  however,  were  needed.  I  was 
unused  to  traveling;  my  life  had  been  spent  on  a  secluded 
farm ;  and  the  journey,  mostly  by  stage-coach,  at  that  time 
was  really  a  formidable  one.  Moreover  the  few  Abolitionists 
were  everywhere  spoken  against,  their  persons  threatened,  and, 
in  some  instances,  a  price  set  on  their  heads  by  Southern  legis 
lators.  Pennsylvania  was  on  the  borders  of  slavery,  and  it 
needed  small  effort  of  imagination  to  picture  to  one's  self  the 
breaking  up  of  the  Convention  and  maltreatment  of  its  mem 
bers.  This  latter  consideration  I  do  not  think  weighed  much 
with  me,  although  I  was  better  prepared  for  serious  danger 
than  for  anything  like  personal  indignity.  I  had  read  Gov 
ernor  Trumbull's  description  of  the  tarring  and  feathering  of 
his  hero,  MacFingal,  when,  after  the  application  of  the  melted 


THE    ANTI-SLAVERY    CONTEST.  85 

tar,  the  feather-bed  was  ripped  open  and  shaken  over  him, 

until 

'  Not  Maia's  son  with  wings  for  ears, 
Such  plumes  about  his  visage  wears, 
Nor  Milton's  six-winged  angel  gathers 
Such  superfluity  of  feathers,' 

and  I  confess  I  was  quite  unwilling  to  undergo  a  martyrdom 
which  my  best  friends  could  scarcely  refrain  from  laughing  at. 
But  a  summons  like  that  of  Garrison's  bugle-blast  could  scarcely 
be  unheeded  by  one  who,  from  birth  and  education,  held  fast 
the  traditions  of  that  earlier  Abolitionism  which,  under  the  lead 
of  Benezet  and  Woolman,  had  effaced  from  the  Society  of 
Friends  every  vestige  of  slave-holding.  I  had  thrown  myself, 
with  a  young  man's  fervid  enthusiasm,  into  a  movement  which 
commended  itself  to  my  reason  and  conscience,  to  my  love  of 
country,  and  my  sense  of  duty  to  God  and  my  fellow-men. 
My  first  venture  in  authorship  was  the  publication,  at  my  own 
expense,  in  the  spring  of  1833,  of  a  pamphlet  entitled  'Justice 
and  Expediency,'  on  the  moral  and  political  evils  of  slavery, 
and  the  duty  of  emancipation.  Under  such  circumstances,  I 
could  not  hesitate,  but  prepared  at  once  for  my  journey.  It 
was  necessary  that  I  should  start  on  the  morrow,  and  the  inter 
vening  time,  with  a  small  allowance  for  sleep,  was  spent  in 
providing  for  the  care  of  the  farm  and  homestead  during  my 
absence." 

The  expenses  of  so  long  a  journey  were  no  slight 
matter,  and  he  had  written  to  Mr.  Garrison,  when  the 
first  proposal  was  made  to  him,  that  he  would  like  to 
go.  "  But,"  said  he,  "  the  expenses  of  the  journey 
will,  I  fear,  be  too  much  for  me  :  as  thee  knows,  our 
farming  business  does  not  put  much  money  in  our 
pockets."  In  the  end  his  expenses  were  borne  by  the 
generous  Samuel  E.  Sewall.1 

1  Life  of  Garrison  by  his  sons. 


86  JOHN    G.    WHITTIER. 

Taking  the  stage  for  Boston,  he  put  up  at  the 
old  Eastern  Stage  Tavern,  and  next  morning  started 
for  New  York  by  the  stage-coach  in  company  with 
William  Lloyd  Garrison.  On  arriving  in  Phila- 
delpia,  the  delegates  first  held  an  informal  meeting 
at  the  house  of  the  Abolition  Quaker,  Evan  Lewis. 
The  chairman  of  the  meeting  was  Lewis  Tappan,  one 
of  the  pillars  of  Abolitionism,  a  handsome,  intel 
lectual-looking  man,  with  clear  incisive  tones,  cool 
self-possession,  fine  business  qualities,  and  a  pleasant 
laugh.  There  were  sixty-two  members  eventually 
present,  representing  eleven  different  States,  although 
only  forty  were  at  this  preliminary  meeting.  Their 
object  was  one  which  would  subject  them  to  annoy 
ance  and  insult,  if  not  danger  (threats  had  already 
been  made,  and  the  police  had  notified  them  that 
their  meetings  must  be  held  in  the  day-time,  as  they 
could  not  protect  them  at  night).  Accordingly,  it  was 
thought  best  to  try  to  secure  a  presiding  officer  from 
among  the  prominent  philanthropists  in  the  city.  So 
six  or  seven  of  the  members  were  delegated  to  wait 
upon  Thomas  Wistar  and  Robert  Vaux,  wealthy 
Quakers.  Of  their  call  upon  the  latter  gentleman, 
Samuel  J.  May  says  :  "  I  wish  I  had  some  wit  that  I 
might  be  able  to  do  justice  to  the  scene.  But  I  need 
not  help  you  to  see  it  in  all  its  ludicrousness.  There 
were  at  least  six  of  us — Beriah  Green,  Evan  Lewis, 
editor  of  the  anti-slavery  journal  in  Philadelphia, 
called  the  '  Advocate  of  Truth/  Eppingham  L.  Ca- 
pron,  Lewis  Tappan,  John  G.  Whittier,  and  myself — 
sitting  around  a  richly  furnished  parlor,  gravely 
arguing  by  turns  with  the  wealthy  occupant,  to  per 
suade  him  that  it  was  his  duty  to  come  and  be  the 


THE    ANTI-SLAVERY    CONTEST.  87 

most  prominent  one  in  a  meeting  of  men  already 
denounced  as  '  fanatics,  amalgamationists,  disor- 
ganizers,  disturbers  of  the  peace,  and  dangerous 
enemies  of  the  country.'  Of  course  our  suit  was  un 
successful.  We  came  away  mortified  much  more 
because  we  had  made  such  a  request  than  because  it 
had  been  denied.  As  we  left  the  door,  Beriah  Green 
said  in  his  most  sarcastic  tone,'  If  there  is  not  timber 
amongst  ourselves  big  enough  to  make  a  president 
of,  let  us  get  along  without  one,  or  go  home  and  stay 
there  until  we  have  grown  up  to  be  men.'" 

At  the  meeting  next  morning,  in  the  Adelphi 
Theatre,  Beriah  Green  was  chosen  president,  and 
Whittier  and  Tappan  secretaries.  Mr.  Whittier  has 
sketched  some  of  the  more  prominent  persons  pres 
ent,  many  of  whom  were  young  men,  enthusiastic 
and  solemnly  consecrated  to  the  cause.  Beriah 
Green  is  described  as  an  eloquent  speaker,  "a  fresh- 
faced,  sandy-haired,  rather  common-looking  man  "  ; 
then  there  was  the  genial,  large-hearted,  and  brave 
Samuel  May  ;  "  that  tall,  gaunt,  swarthy  man,  erect, 
eagle-faced,  upon  whose  somewhat  martial  figure  the 
Quaker  coat  seemed  a  little  out  of  place,  was  Lindley 
Coates,  known  in  all  eastern  Pennsylvania  as  a  stern 
enemy  of  slavery  ;  that  slight,  eager  man,  intensely 
alive  in  every  feature  and  gesture,  was  Thomas 
Shipley,  who  for  thirty  years  had  been  the  protector 
of  the  free  colored  people  of  Philadelphia;  .  .  . 
beside  him  sat  Thomas  Whitson,  of  the  Hicksite 
school  of  Friends,  fresh  from  his  farm  in  Lancaster 
County,  dressed  in  plainest  homespun,  his  tall  form 
surmounted  by  a  shock  of  unkempt  [brown]  hair, 
the  odd  obliquity  of  his  vision  contrasting  strongly 


88  JOHN    G.    WHITTIER. 

with  the  clearness  and  directness  of  his  spiritual  in 
sight.  [When  he  spoke,  says  Mr.  McKim,  "his 
matter  was  solid  and  clear  as  a  bell,  and  was  more 
over  pat  to  the  point  in  question."]  Elizur  Wright, 
the  young  professor  of  a  Western  college,  who  had 
lost  his  place  by  his  bold  advocacy  of  freedom,  with 
a  look  of  sharp  concentration  in  keeping  with  an 
intellect  keen  as  a  Damascus  blade,  closely  watched 
the  proceedings  through  his  spectacles,  opening  his 
mouth  only  to  speak  directly  to  the  purpose." 

Directly  in  front  of  Mr.  Whittier,  who  sat  on  the 
platform,  was  Joshua  Coffin,  his  old  teacher.  The 
best  speech  in  the  Convention,  all  allowed,  was  made 
by  Lucretia  Mott,  whose  marvelously  beautiful, 
sharp-cut,  and  intellectual  face  was  radiant  with 
thought.  She  was  dressed  in  plain  but  rich  Quaker 
costume,  and  had  a  dignified  and  earnest  manner. 
Only  on  the  subject  of  slavery  was  her  habitual 
placidity  of  manner  disturbed.  When  she  first  rose 
to  speak,  she  hesitated  in  deference  to  the  supposable 
prejudices  of  the  non-Quaker  part  of  the  audience, 
among  whom  it  was  then  an  unheard  of  thing  for  a 
woman  to  speak  in  public.  But  Beriah  Green  called 
out  encouragingly,  "  Go  on,  ma'am,  we  shall  all  be 
glad  to  hear  you."  And  "  Go  on,  go  on  !  "  was  echoed 
by  many  more. 

A  Constitution  was  written  out  and  adopted,  and 
officers  chosen.  Mr.  Garrison  sat  up  all  night  in  the 
attic  of  his  colored  host,  Lewis  Evans,  to  draft  the 
Declaration  of  Sentiments,  which  urged  immediate 
emancipation  as  a  moral  duty,  to  be  attained  by 
peaceful  measures,  and  conceded  the  right  of  the 
separate  States  to  manage  their  own  domestic 


THE    ANTI-SLAVERY    CONTEST.  89 

interests,  asserting,  however,  that  it  was  the  duty  of 
the  general  government  to  suppress  the  slave-trade 
between  the  several  States,  and  to  abolish  slavery 
altogether  in  that  territory  over  which  it  has  exclusive 
jurisdiction.  After  the  Declaration  had  been  dis 
cussed,  amended,  and  engrossed  on  parchment,  the 
sixty-two  members  (twenty-one  of  whom  were 
Quakers)  signed  it  one  by  one.  The  oldest  of  the 
signers,  David  Thurston,  of  Maine,  lived  to  see  the 
emancipation  of  the  slaves.  Mr.  Whittier's  words  in 
relation  to  the  Declaration  have  often  been  quoted  : 
"  I  set  a  higher  value  on  my  name  as  appended  to  the 
Anti-slavery  Declaration  of  1833  than  on  the  title-page 
of  any  book."  In  the  little  study  at  Amesbury  hangs 
a  copy  of  the  Declaration,  in  a  frame  made  of  wood 
from  Pennsylvania  Hall.  Of  this  Hall  more  anon. 

In  December,  1863,  the  thirtieth  anniversary  of  the 
founding  of  the  American  Anti-slavery  Society  was 
held  in  Philadelphia,  and  interesting  addresses  were 
given  by  Mr.  Garrison,  J.  Miller  McKim,  and  Lu- 
cretia  Mott.1  In  1883,  the  fiftieth  anniversary  was 
celebrated  (after  a  fashion)  in  the  same  city.  Only 
three  of  the  original  signers  of  the  Declaration  were 
alive  ;  namely,  Robert  Purvis,  Elizur  Wright,  and 
John  G.  Whittier.  The  latter  could  not  come,  and 
sent  a  letter  of  regret,  so  that  the  meeting  consisted 
of  two  persons, — Robert  Purvis  the  chairman,  and 
Elizur  Wright  the  audience. 

The  years  1834  and  1835  are  often  spoken  of  in 
anti-slavery  writings  as  the  mob  years.  Mr.  Whittier 


1  Stenographic  report  of  the  proceedings  in  "  Liberator,"  Dec. 
25,  1863,  including  an  interesting  letter  by  Whittier. 


90  JOHN    G.    WHITTIER. 

suffered  in  two  of  the  mobs  and  riots  of  these  years, 
and  was  present  at  a  third.  In  1834  the  mobs  in  New 
York  City  were  so  numerous  and  violent  that  the 
time  in  which  they  occurred  is  spoken  of  as  the 
Reign  of  Terror.  In  1835  the  post-office  of  Charleston, 
South  Carolina,  was  broken  open  by  citizens,  and  all 
papers  judged  by  them  to  be  of  an  inflammatory  nature 
were  seized  and  burned.  This  act  was  condoned  by 
the  United  States  authorities.  At  the  famous  mob 
bing  of  Garrison  in  Boston,  October  21,  1835,  Mr. 
Whittier  was  present,  being  then  in  Boston  with  his 
sister  Elizabeth,  his  duty  as  a  member  of  the  legis 
lature  requiring  his  presence  there.  He  was  at  the 
State  House  on  Beacon  Hill  when  the  mobbing  took 
place  ;  and  he  at  once  hastened  down  to  the  old 
State  House  where  the  broadcloth  mobocrats  were 
surging  wildly  to  and  fro  in  the  attempt  to  secure 
possession  of  the  person  of  Mr.  Garrison.  After  he 
was  lodged  in  jail,  he  was  visited  by  Mr.  Whittier 
and  other  friends,  who  found  him  to  be  in  good  heart. 
Mr.  Whittier  was  staying  with  his  sister  at  the  house 
of  Samuel  J.  May,  and,  hearing  that  the  crowd  had 
threatened  to  attack  the  house,  he  saw  his  sister 
safely  bestowed  for  the  night  at  another  friend's,  and 
he  and  Mr.  May  passed  a  sleepless  night  in  the  lat- 
ter's  dwelling.  Harriet  Martineau,  in  her  "Views  of 
Slavery,"  is  amazed  at  the  indifference  shown  by  the 
"respectable"  classes  toward  this  outrage  ;  and  sore 
amazed,  too,  was  young  Wendell  Phillips,  who  wit 
nessed  it  :  the  mob  decided  his  life-work.  Miss 
Martineau  writes  that  an  eminent  lawyer  of  Boston 
said  to  her: — 

"'  Oh,  there  was  no  mob.     I  was  there  myself,  and 


THE    ANTI-SLAVERY    CONTEST.  QI 

saw  that  they  were  all  gentlemen.  They  were  all  in 
fine  broadcloth.' 

"  *  Not  the  less  a  mob  for  that,'  said  I. 

"  '  Why,  they  protected  Garrison.  He  received  no 
harm.  They  protected  Garrison.' 

"  '  From  whom,  or  what  ? ' 

"  '  Oh,  they  would  not  really  hurt  him.  They  only 
wanted  to  show  that  they  would  not  have  such  a 
person  live  among  them.'" 

We  are  next  called  upon  to  notice  two  mobs  that 
occurred  farther  north,  and  both  on  the  same  even 
ing.  In  the  Haverhill  mob  Mr.  Whittier's  sister 
Elizabeth  was  in  danger  of  her  life  ;  and  in  that  of 
Concord,  New  Hampshire,  directed  against  Mr.  Whit- 
tier  himself  and  his  friend  George  Thompson  (the 
English  orator,  afterwards  member  of  Parliament), 
these  two  men  were  in  serious  danger.  At  Haverhill, 
it  was  a  Sunday  evening  lecture  by  Samuel  J.  May 
that  brought  out  the  lewd  fellows  of  the  baser  sort. 
Amid  terrible  yells  and  other  noises  a  stone  came 
crashing  through  the  window,  after  the  lecture  had 
begun,  and  struck  a  lady  on  the  head.  She  uttered 
a  shriek,  and  fell  bleeding  into  the  arms  of  her  sister. 
Mr.  May  closed  the  meeting,  and  escaped  by  walking 
out  between  Elizabeth  Whittier  and  the  daughter  of 
a  wealthy  and  determined  citizen  of  the  place. 

The  mob-ordeal  through  which  Whittier  and 
George  Thompson  passed  in  Concord,  New  Hamp 
shire,  in  1835,  was  perhaps  not  excelled  in  thrilling 
and  picturesque  incident  by  any  other  during  the 
anti-slavery  struggle.1  It  happened  in  this  wise  ; 


I  have  constructed   the  narrative  of  the  Concord  mob  not  only 


92  JOHN    G.    WHITTIER. 

George  Thompson,  the  English  lecturer,  was  visiting 
Mr.  Whittier  at  Haverhill;  and,  thinking  they  would 
not  be  recognized,  they  determined  to  take  a  drive 
up  into  New  Hampshire  to  visit  N.  P.  Rogers.  They 
stopped  over  night  in  Concord  at  the  house  of  George 
Kent,  a  brother-in-law  of  Mr.  Rogers.  After  they  had 
gone,  Mr.  Kent,  being  an  Abolitionist,  determined 
to  try  to  hire  a  hall  for  a  meeting,  to  be  held  when  the 
friends  should  return.  Accordingly,  it  was  arranged 
that  they  should  be  back  on  the  Friday  following. 
The  use  of  the  Court  House  was  obtained  for  the 
meeting,  and  handbills  were  posted  announcing  that 
George  Thompson  and  John  G.  Whittier  would 
address  the  citizens,  setting  forth  the  aims  and  views 
of  the  Abolitionists.  Now,  nobody  had  anything 
against  the  little-known  young  man  Whittier  ;  but 
the  mention  of  Thompson  created  tremendous  excite 
ment  and  wrath  ;  for  it  was  then  the  implicit  belief  of 
the  people  that  Thompson,  "the  carpet-bagger,"  was 
an  emissary  of  the  British  Government,  sent  over  here 
to  foster  dissension  between  North  and  South,  and 


from  a  description  of  it  given  to  me  by  Mr.  Whittier  himself 
some  years  ago,  but  from  the  accounts  of  others  to  whom  he  has 
told  the  story.  My  thanks  are  due  to  the  D.  Lothrop  Co.,  of  Bos 
ton,  for  the  use  of  material  embodied  in  their  "  Whittier"  ;  I  am 
also  indebted  to  Underwood's  "Whittier";  to  reminiscences  of 
Mrs.  Julia  Ward  Ho\re  ("  Cosmopolitan,"  July,  1889);  to  Rossiter 
Johnson's  "Short  History  of  Secession"  ;  ihe  reminiscences  of 
John  M.  Barbour  (Boston  "  Transcript,"  August,  1889)  ;  letter  of 
Mr.  Whittier  to  J.W.  Powell  (New  York  "Tribune,"  1885);  a  letter 
by  the  same  to  the  Haverhill  "Gazette,"  reprinted  in  the  "  Liber 
ator,"  Oct.  3,  '35  ;  and  Bouton's  "  History  of  Concord,"  pp.  434, 
435.  which  is  good  for  names  and  dates,  but  glosses  over  or  is 
silent  about  the  worst  features  of  the  outrage. 


THE    ANTI-SLAVERY    CONTEST.  93 

so  cripple  our  industries.  The  indignation  of  the 
townsmen  was  so  strong  that  Gen.  Robert  Dana, 
chairman  of  the  Board  of  Selectmen,  called  on 
George  Kent,  and  advised  that  the  meeting  should 
not  be  held,  and  directed  that  the  door  of  the  Court 
House  be  locked. 

Nevertheless,  at  the  appointed  time,  the  Abolition 
ists  and  their  opponents  began  to  assemble  around 
the  building.  Whittier  and  Thompson  had  arrived 
and  put  up  at  George  Kent's  beautiful  residence  ; 
and,  not  knowing  that  their  arrival  had  been  bruited 
abroad,  Whittier,  in  company  with  Mr.  C.  Hoag  (a 
Quaker)  and  editor  Joseph  H.  Kimball,  started  just 
at  dusk  down  the  street.  As  they  passed  along  the 
principal  thoroughfare,  they  met  a  large  concourse  of 
men  all  crazy  with  liquor,  and  shouting  and  yelling 
furiously.  They  had  just  subjected  to  rough  treat 
ment  a  poor  traveling  Quaker  preacher  who  was 
passing  through  the  town.  They  took  him  to  be 
Whittier,  the  Abolitionist. 

"The  good  people,"  writes  Mr.  Whittier,  "were 
lashing  each  other  into  a  fine  frenzy,  cursing  the  Abo 
litionists  as  Federalists,  etc.  The  cry  was  raised, 
'  To  George  Kenfs  and  the  wine  in  his  cellar  !  '  Fear 
ing  an  attack  on  our  friend's  house,  we  turned  to  go 
back  and  give  warning  of  the  danger.  But  our 
friends,  the  mobites  ["our  friends,  the  enemy  !  "]  fol 
lowed  us,  and  insisted  that  I,  notwithstanding  my 
Quaker  coat,  must  be  the  identical  incendiary  and 
fanatic,  George  Thompson.  A  regular  shower  of 
harmless  curses  followed,  and  soon  after  another 
equally  harmless  shower  of  stones  [dirt,  and  gravel]. 
These  missiles  were  hurled  with  some  force,  and 


94  JOHN    G.    WHITTIER. 

might  have  done  us  some  injury,  had  not  those  who 
projected  them  been  somewhat  overdone  by  their 
patriotic  exertions  in  drinking  destruction  to  the 
Abolitionists." 

We  know  from  other  sources  that  Mr.  Whittier's 
hat  was  knocked  off  and  lost,  and  that  he  was  bruised 
in  the  face  by  a  large  stone  hurled  at  him.  He  was 
afterwards  told  by  one  of  the  mobbers  that  it  was 
their  intention  to  catch  him  and  paint  his  face  black. 
As  the  trio  were  retreating,  Whittier  heard  an  Irish 
man  say,  "  They  've  killed  the  Englishman,  and  now 
they  're  going  for  the  Quaker." 

The  pelted  three  were  followed  up  Washington 
Street  and  down  State,  where  they  found  it  necessary 
to  take  shelter  in  the  house  of  the  Hon.  William  A. 
Kent.  Although  he  was  not  an  Abolitionist,  the 
rioters  knew  him  to  be  a  brave  man.  He  barred  his 
door,  and  addressed  the  crowd,  assuring  them  they 
had  mistaken  their  man,  that  George  Thompson  was 
not  in  the  house,  and  that  they  should  have  Whittier 
only  over  his  dead  body. 

In  the  meantime  it  had  grown  dark  ;  and  Whittier, 
remembering  the  remark  of  the  Irishman  in  the 
crowd  concerning  Thompson,  became  so  anxious  as 
to  his  fate  that  he  borrowed  a  hat,  succeeded  in 
passing  the  enemy's  lines,  and  arrived  safe  at  George 
Kent's,  where  he  found  Mr.  Thompson  unhurt  and 
cheerful. 

After  some  delay  on  the  part  of  the  mob,  the  cry 
"  Onward !  "  was  raised,  and  they  moved  off  to 
George  Kent's.  After  some  stone-throwing  and 
much  blasphemy,  they  were  decoyed  away  by  a 
stratagem.  But  after  parading  the  town  for  an  hour 


THE    ANTI-SLAVERY    CONTEST.  95 

or  two,  "  refreshed  with  Deacon  Giles's  best,"  they 
once  more  returned  (having  discovered  the  trick), 
provided  with  drums,  fifes,  muskets,  and  a  cannon, 
and  threatened  to  blow  up  the  house  if  the  d — d 
Abolitionists  were  not  delivered  up  to  them,  in  the 
meantime  keeping  up  a  continuous  uproar  of  bray 
ing,  cat-calling,  and  swearing. 

Now,  it  so  happened  that  a  little  group  of  anti- 
slavery  people  were  met  that  evening  at  George 
Kent's, — among  them  being  two  nieces  of  Daniel 
Webster.  They  all  felt  that  the  lives  of  Whittter  and 
Thompson  were  in  danger,  and  that  they  ought  to 
try  to  get  away.  To  this  proposal  Whittier,  at  least, 
was  able  to  agree  unhesitatingly  ;  for  he  had  always 
had  a  nervous  dread,  not  of  death,  but  of  suffering 
gross  personal  indignities.  The  mob  filled  the  street 
just  below  Mr.  Kent's  carriage-gate,  leaving  a  way  of 
possible  escape  through  it.  Accordingly,  the  horse 
and  carriage  were  drawn  up  quietly  in  the  shadow  of 
the  house.  It  was  a  bright  moonlight  night,  and  the 
glint  of  the  musket-barrels  could  be  seen  just  below. 
Suddenly  the  two  friends  jumped  into  the  carriage, 
the  gate  was  opened,  and  the  horse  driven  off  at  a 
gallop  amid  the  yells  and  shots  of  the  rioters. 

After  the  escape,  these  fellows  paraded  an  effigy 
through  the  streets,  and  afterwards  burned  it  in  the 
State  House  yard,  concluding  the  orgie  with  a  dis 
play  of  fire-works  and  discharges  of  cannon. 

The  two  friends  left  the  city  by  way  of  Hook- 
set  Bridge,  the  only  way  open  to  them,  and  took  the 
road  to  Haverhill.  They  had  received  minute  and 
careful  directions  from  their  friends,  and  got  further 
directions  at  the  house  of  an  anti-slavery  man  three 


96  JOHN    G.    WHITTIER. 

miles  out  from  Concord.  In  the  morning  they 
stopped  at  a  tavern  to  give  themselves  and  the  horse 
a  breakfast.  While  they  were  eating,  the  landlord 
entertained  them  with  a  report  of  the  Haverhill  mob. 
Said  one  of  the  friends  to  the  host, — 

"  What  kind  of  a  fellow  is  this  Whittier  ?  " 
"  Oh,    he 's    an    ignorant  sort    of   chap,   a  Quaker 
farmer." 

"  And  who  is  this  Thompson  they  're  talking 
about  ?  " 

"  Him  ?  He  's  a  man  sent  over  here  by  the  British 
government  to  make  trouble  between  the  North  and 
the  South." 

As  the  two  gentlemen  were  stepping  into  the 
carriage,  Whittier,  with  one  foot  on  the  step,  turned 
and  said  to  the  landlord  : — 

"  You  've  been  talkin'  about  Thompson  and 
Whittier.  This  is  Mr.  Thompson,  and  I  'm  Whittier. 
Good  morning." 

"  And,  jumping  into  the  carriage  "  (said  Mr.  Whittier 
to  the  writer,  with  a  twinkle  in  his  eye),  "  we  stood 
not  on  the  order  of  our  going."  The  good  Boniface 
looked  stupefied  with  wonder.  "  And  for  all  I  know," 
said  the  poet,  "  he  's  standing  there  still  with  his 
mouth  open." 

After  this  adventure,  Mr.  Thompson  was  kept 
quietly  at  the  Whittier  farm-house  for  a  couple  of 
weeks.  For  the  indignities  he  suffered  at  Concord, 
Whittier  had  ample  revenge,  in  that  stinging  way  in 
which  men  of  the  pen  have  always  defended  their 
sensibilities;  namely,  by  the  publication  of  a  brace 
of  satirical  ballads,  —  the  "  Letter  Supposed  to  be 
Written  by  the  Chairman  of  the  Central  Clique  at 


THE    ANTI-SLAVERY    CONTEST.  97 

Concord  "  (1846),  and  the  following  verses,  which, 
indeed,  appeared  a  year  previous  to  the  mobbing  of 
Whittier  and  Thompson,  but  were  published  in  the 
first  edition  of  the  poems  in  1837,  and  have  not  since 
been  reprinted  :— 

APOLOGY 

TO  THE  "  CHIVALROUS  SONS  OF  THE  SOUTH,"  FOR  THE  FORMATION  OF 

THE  LADIES'  ANTI-SLAVERY  SOCIETY,  IN  c D,  N.  H. 

Most  chivalrous  gentlemen,  pardon  us,  pray, 

And  pity  our  present  condition, — 
The  lady  fanatics  have  carried  the  day, 

And  openly  preach  Abolition  ! 
The  petticoat-plotters,  with  might  and  with  main, 
Are  tearing  the  bonds  of  the  Union  in  twain  ! 

We  knew,  to  our  sorrow,  that  over  their  tea 
These  ladies,  for  months,  had  been  brewing 

A  plot  to  dismember  the  Union,  and  free 
Your  slaves,  to  their  positive  ruin: 

But  who  would  have  dreamed  that  they  ever  would  dare, 

In  the  face  of  New  Hampshire,  their  purpose  declare  ! 

Oh,  where  had  the  fear  of  the  P 1  gone 

From  the  eyes  of  these  turbulent  ladies  ? 
And  where  Parson  F k's  indignation  and  scorn 

Which  overwhelmed  all,  when  he  made  his 
Great  speech  at  our  Democrat  gathering,  when 
Abolition  was  working  its  way  with  the  men  ? 

Alack  and  alas  !  that  we  live  to  relate 

How  these  Amazons  gathered  together, 
Consulting  each  other,  in  solemn  debate, 

About  loosing  the  slave  from  his  tether ; 
And  gravely  resolving  your  negroes  to  be 
Created  like  all  of  us— equal  and  free. 

7 


98  JOHN    G.    WHITTIER. 

But  think  not,  dear  sirs,  that  with  conduct  so  base 

"  The  Democracy  "  rested  in  quiet : 
No,  it  rose  in  its  strength  to  redeem  from  disgrace 

The  town  by  a  regular  riot ! 

And,  surrounding  the  house  where  the  mischief  went  on, 
Plied  well  the  "  fanatics  "  with  brickbat  and  stone. 

Through  door  and  through  window  our  missiles  went  in, 

Disturbing  the  laces  and  trimming, — 
Oh,  would  that  "  our  dear  Southern  brethren  "  had  seen 

How  "  Democracy  "  pelted  the  women  ! 
And  had  heard,  midst  the  crashing  of  brickbats,  its  shout- 
"  Hurrah  for  the  Union  ! — you  women,  clear  out !  '• 

Yet  it  grieves  us  to  say  that  in  spite  of  our  great 

And  most  patriotic  exertion, 
These  petticoat-traitors  regarded  our  feat 

As  merely  a  cause  of  diversion  ; 
And  still  they  went  on,  without  let  or  disaster, 
To  spoil  "  the  relations  of  servant  and  master." 

But,  though  foiled  in  its  efforts  to  drive  away 

This  bevy  of  gossip  and  beauty, 
"  The  Democracy  "  feels,  and  rejoices  to  say, 

That  it  fully  performed  its  duty  ; 

And  it  trusts  that  its  friends  will  with  cheerfulness  own 
That  all  that  it  could  do,  m  safety,  was  done  ! 

We  are  sadly  disheartened,  and  all  in  a  fret — 

Parson  F k  is  about  to  absquatalize, 

And  B — t — n  beneath  the  State's  Prison  debt 

Is  hiding  himself  from  mortal  eyes ; 

Even  H 11  cannot  help  us — his  hands  are  too  full, 

Making  C — h — n  a  "  Democrat  died  in  the  wool." 

WHITE  SLAVE,  DOUGHFACE,  &  Co.1 


The  verses  first  appeared  in  the  "Liberator"  Jan.    j,   1835. 


THE    ANTI-SLAVERY    CONTEST.  99 

In  February,  1836,  some  five  months  after  the 
event  of  the  mob,  we  find  Whittier  addressing  an 
open  letter  to  Edward  Everett  (printed  in  "  Liber 
ator,"  February  20,  of  that  year). 

"  To  EDWARD  EVERETT,  GOVERNOR  OF  MASSACHUSETTS  : — 
"  Exercising,  while  yet  I  may,  the  unsurrendered  right  of  a 
free  citizen  of  Massachusetts,  with  due  respect  for  thy  official 
station,  but  with  the  frankness  which  becomes  a  republican,  I 
feel  myself  called  upon  to  address  thee,  in  relation  to  that  por 
tion  of  thy  late  Message  which  is  devoted  to  the  subject  of 
Slavery." 

Whittier  disagrees  with  Governor  Everett  as  to  his 
statement  that  at  the  time  the  United  States  Consti 
tution  was  formed  the  question  of  slavery  was  an 
open  one.  He  affirms  that  the  signers  simply  left 
the  slavery  question  as  it  was,  without  at  all  desiring 
to  perpetuate  it.  In  proof,  he  cites  the  fact  that 
Benjamin  Franklin,  although  a  signer  of  both  the 
Declaration  and  the  Constitution,  also  signed  another 
Constitution  not  long  after  ;  namely,  that  of  the 
Pennsylvania  Society  for  the  Abolition  of  Slavery. 
He  continues  : — 

"George  Washington  was  another  signer  of  the  Constitution. 
I  know  that  he  was  a  slaveholder ;  and  I  have  not  forgotten 
the  emotions  which  swelled  my  bosom,  when  in  the  metropolis 


and  refer  to  a  mob  which  occurred  in  Concord,  New  Hampshire, 
Nov.  14,  1834  (not  noticed  in  the  "  History  of  Concord,"  but  date 
recoverable  from  "Liberator"  Dec.  13,  '34,  which  contains  an 

article  on  the  affair).     "Parson    F k"    is    undoubtedly    Rev. 

Wilbur  Fisk,  one  of  the  most  ''abusive  and  malignant"  of  the 
opponents  of  George  Thompson.  "C — h — n"  is  evidently  for 
Calhoun. 


100  JOHN    G.    WHITTIER. 

of  New  England,  the  Cradle  of  Liberty,  a  degenerate  son  of  the 
Pilgrims  pointed  to  his  portrait,  which  adorns  the  wall,  with 
the  thrice  repeated  exclamation, — '  That  Slaveholder ! '  I  saw 
the  only  blot  on  the  otherwise  bright  and  spotless  character  of 
the  Father  of  his  Country  held  to  open  view — exposed  by 
remorseless  hands  to  sanction  a  system  of  oppression  and 
blood.  It  seemed  to  me  like  sacrilege.  I  looked  upon  those 
venerable  and  awful  features,  while  the  echoes,  once  wakened 
in  that  old  Hall  by  the  voice  of  ancient  Liberty,  warm  from  the 
lips  of  Adams  and  Hancock  and  the  fiery  heart  of  James  Otis, 
gave  back  from  wall  and  gallery  the  exulting  cry  of 'Slave 
holder,'  half  expecting  to  see  the  still  canvas  darken  with  a 
frown,  and  the  pictured  lips  part  asunder  with  words  of  rebuke 
and  sorrow.1  I  felt  it,  as  did  hundreds  more,  on  that  occasion, 
to  be  a  reproach  and  a  cruel  insult  to  the  memory  of  the  illus 
trious  dead.  Did  not  the  speaker  know  that  the  dying  testi 
mony  of  Washington  was  against  slavery  ?  " 9 


1  The  famous  sentence  of  Wendell  Phillips  — "  I  thought  those 
pictured  lips  would  have  broken  into  voice,  to  rebuke  the  recreant 
American  " — was  clearly  plagiarized,  by  an  unconscious  act  of  mem 
ory,  from  the  above  eloquent  passage  by  Whittier  written  nearly 
two  years  previous  to  the  Faneuil  Hall  speech  by  Phillips.    Young 
Phillips  had  been  mightily  aroused  by  the   Garrison  mob,  some 
months  before  the  date  of  Whittier's  open  letter  to  Everett,  and 
had  resolved  to  devote  his  life  to  the  cause  of  Freedom.     He  had 
undoubtedly,  therefore,  read  Whittier's  strong  and  manly  letter  to 
the  Governor,  and  remembered,  dimly,  the  passage  in  question. 

2  By  the  will  of  Washington  all  his  slaves  were  to  be  freed  on 
the  death  of  his  wife.     It  was  his  ardent  desire   to  free  his  own 
slaves  during  his  life,  but  their  intermarriage  with  the  dower  slaves 
of  his  wife  caused  "  insuperable  difficulties," — so  he  said.     It  is 
evident  that  both  he  and  his  wife  were  guilty  of  weakness  and 
cowardice  in  this  matter.    There  were  no  insuperable  difficulties  in 
the  way  of  doing  right.     However,  we   must  have  charity.     No 
doubt  they  acted  in  accordance  with  all  the  light  given  them.   To 
an  aristocratic   Virginia  gentleman   and   lady   of   the   eighteenth 


THE   ANTI-SLAVERY    CONTEST.  IOI 

Whittier  then  quotes  from  several  letters  of  Wash 
ington,  in  which  that  statesman  expresses  an  ardent 
desire  for  the  abolition  of  slavery  : — 

"  I  come  now  to  that  portion  of  thy  remarks  which  of  all 
others  seems  most  reprehensible.  After  admitting  the  repug 
nance  of  our  people  to  laws  impairing  the  liberty  of  speech 
and  of  the  press,  '  the  patriotism  of  all  classes  of  citizens  is  in 
voked'  '  to  abstain  from  a  discussion  'of  the  subject  of  Slavery. 
Abstain  from  discussion  ! — What  more  does  the  Holy  Alliance 
require  ? — What  more  does  Gov.  McDuffie  demand  ?  Is  this 
the  age — are  ours  the  laws — are  the  sons  of  the  Pilgrims  the 
men — for  advice  like  this  ? — What  ! — when  the  whole  world  is 


century,  living  in  something  like  patriarchal  or  feudal  style,  on  an 
isolated  estate,  emancipation  presented  itself  in  a  different  light 
from  what  it  does  to  us  now.  There  is  extant  a  curious  open  letter 
addressed  to  Washington  on  this  subject  by  a  certain  Edward  Rush- 
ton,  of  Liverpool,  in  1797,  two  years  before  Washington's  death. 
The  reason  why  Washington  returned  his  pamphlet  to  Rushton 
"  under  cover,  without  a  syllable  in  reply,"  will  appear  from  the 
following  sentence  in  it  :  "  The  hypocritical  bawd  who  preaches 
chastity,  yet  lives  by  the  violation  of  it,  is  not  more  truly  disgust 
ing  than  one  of  your  slave-holding  gentry  bellowing  in  favor  of 
democracy."  Rushton's  letter  is  not  mentioned  in  any  of  the 
numerous  Lives  of  Washington,  which,  like  nearly  all  biographies, 
are  careful  whitewashes.  In  1835  a  visitor  to  Mount  Vernon 
found  several  of  Washington's  freed  slaves — Sambo  Anderson, 
Dick  Jasper,  and  others — engaged  in  gratuitous  work  for  the  im 
provement  of  the  turf  about  his  tomb.  They  stated  that  they  had 
offered  their  services  as  the  only  way  in  which  they  could  show 
their  love  for  the  man  who  had  been  more  than  a  father  to  them 
("  New  Eng.  Anti-si.  Almanac,"  1841,  p.  2).  See  in  "  Liberator," 
March  22,  '34,  a  long  letter  from  Washington's  degenerate  nephew, 
who  tries  to  excuse  himself  for  selling  fifty  of  his  slaves  south,  and 
separating  wives  and  husbands.  He  talks  of  them  as  if  they  were 
so  many  hogs,  "  my  property,"  etc. 


102  JOHN    G.    WHITTIER. 

moved — when  the  very  foundations  of  principalities  and  powers 
are  upheaving  with  the  one  great  impulse  of  the  age — the  ir 
resistible  workings  of  Free  Inquiry — is  it  in  Massachusetts, 
over  the  graves  of  Adams  and  Warren  and  Hancock  and  Otis, 
that  the  spirit  of  free  investigation  is  to  be  arrested  and  stricken 
dumb  ?  ...  Is  this  the  advice  of  a  republican  magistrate 
to  a  community  of  freemen  ?  Far  fitter  is  it  for  the  banks  of 
the  Bosphorus  and  the  Neva  than  for  those  of  the  Connecticut 
and  the  Merrimack." 

Whittier  then  alludes  to  Edward  Everett's  atro 
cious  assertion  of  his  willingness  to  buckle  on  a 
knapsack  and  shoulder  a  musket  to  help  fight  the 
battles  of  the  slaveholders,  and  closes  with  the  re 
fusal  to  yield  the  home-bred  right  of  free  discussion 
to  the  demands  of  interested  politicians.  "  We  can 
neither  permit  the  gag  to  be  thrust  in  our  mouths  by 
others,  nor  deem  it  the  part  of  *  patriotism  '  to  place 
it  there  ourselves." 

The  next  mob  by  which  Mr.  Whittier,  in  common 
with  others,  was  made  a  sufferer  was  that  which  was 
guilty  of  the  burning  of  the  Pennsylvania  Hall,  in 
Philadelphia,  in  the  spring  of  1838.  He  had  been 
appointed  in  1836  one  of  the  Secretaries  of  the  Amer 
ican  Anti-slavery  Society,  and  had  gone  to  New  York 
City  in  the  autumn  of  1837,  remaining  there  three 
months.  His  colleagues  were  Henry  B.  Stanton  and 
Theodore  D.  Weld.  Late  in  the  autumn  he  went  on 
to  Philadelphia  to  write  for  the  "  Pennsylvania  Free 
man,"  a  paper  that  had  formerly  been  edited  by 
Benjamin  Lundy,  under  the  title  of  the  "  National  . 
Enquirer."  Mr.  Whittier  became  editor  of  the  "  Free 
man  "  in  March,  1838.  He  tells  us  that  at  this  time 
he  used  often  to  be  attracted  from  the  heat  and 


THE    ANTI-SLAVERY    CONTEST.  103 

bustle  of  the  city  by  the  quiet  and  beautiful  scenery 
of  the  village  of  Frankford,  where  was  the  residence 
of  Thomas  Chalkley,  the  West  India  merchant  and 
Friends'  minister,  "  gentlest  of  skippers,  rare  sea- 
saint,"  who  is  spoken  of  in  "Snow-Bound,"  and  in 
Whittier's  "  Chalkley  Hall."  In  Philadelphia,  too,  he 
met  his  old  friends,  the  Thayers,  of  Haverhill. 

The  little  group  of  anti-slavery  people  in  Phila 
delphia  had  united  with  other  progressive  philan 
thropists  in  the  building  of  a  large  hall  for  free  dis 
cussion.  It  stood  on  the  corner  of  Sixth  and  Cherry 
Streets,  near  the  Adelphi  Theatre.  It  had  cost  $40,- 
ooo;  and  the  painter,  plumber,  and  clockmaker  were 
just  giving  it  the  last  touches  when  a  three  days'  con 
vention — May  15,  16,  and  17 — was  begun  in  it  by  way 
of  dedication  ceremony.  Garrison,  Burleigh,Whittier, 
and  other  leading  Abolitionists  were  present.  The 
building  was  large  and  commodious,  the  main  hall 
(with  the  galleries)  having  a  seating  capacity  of  two 
thousand.  On  the  front  were  to  be  seen,  in  large 
gilded  letters,  occupying  nearly  the  whole  width  of 
the  structure,  the  words  PENNSYLVANIA  HALL. 
On  the  ground  floor  were  various  offices,  including 
the  anti-slavery  bookstore,  and  the  office  of  Whittier's 
"  Freeman,"  which  he  had  just  had  removed  thither. 

During  the  first  day's  session  there  was  little  dis 
turbance.  On  the  second  day  was  held  an  Anti- 
slavery  Convention  of  American  Women  in  the  new 
hall,  five  hundred  women  being  present.  William 
Lloyd  Garrison  opened  the  meeting  with  a  short 
speech.  Attempts  were  made  by  a  mob  outside  to 
break  up  the  convention  by  hurling  showers  of  stones 
against  the  windows.  The  glass  was  broken,  but  the 


104  JOHN    G.     WHITTIER. 

inside  blinds  prevented  the  stones  from  entering  the 
room.  Amid  the  uproar  and  confusion,  Mrs.  Maria 
W.  Chapman,  of  Boston,  rose  and  addressed  the  audi 
ence.  Sarah  Grimke  wrote  at  the  time:  "  She  is  the 
most  beautiful  woman  I  ever  saw;  the  perfection  of 
sweetness  and  intelligence  being  blended  in  her 
speaking  countenance.  She  arose  amid  the  yells  and 
shouts  of  the  infuriated  mob,  the  crash  of  windows, 
and  the  hurling  of  stones.  She  looked  to  me  like  an 
angelic  being  descended  amid  that  tempest  of  pas 
sion  in  all  the  benignity  of  conscious  superiority."  1 
The  next  speaker  was  Angelina  Grimke  Weld,  who, 
three  days  previous,  had  been  married  to  Theodore  D. 
Weld.2  She  spoke  for  over  an  hour  on  the  sin  of 
slavery.  The  influence  of  her  pure,  beautiful  presence 
and  quiet  manner  was  such  that  in  a  few  moments  the 
noise  within  the  hall  had  ceased.  But  stones  continued 
to  crash  against  the  windows.  "  What  is  a  mob  ?  "  she 
said.  "  What  would  the  breaking  of  every  window  be  ? 
Any  evidence  that  we  are  wrong,  or  that  slavery  is  a 
good  or  wholesome  institution  ?  What  if  the  mob 
should  now  burst  in  upon  us,  break  up  our  meeting, 
and  commit  violence  upon  our  persons, — would  this 
be  anything  compared  with  what  the  slaves  endure  ?  " 

At  the  close  of  the  meeting  each  colored  woman 
present  was  taken  for  protection  between  two  white 
ones  ;  and  thus,  amid  showers  of  missiles  and  jeering 
words,  they  passed  out. 

The  immediate  cause  of  the  disturbances  of  this 


1  Life  of  the  Grimke  Sisters,  p.  239. 

2  Mr.  Whittier  is  so  strict  a  Quaker  that  he  obeyed  the  rules  of 
the  church,  which  forbade  his  attendance  at  this  marriage  of  two 
dear  friends  of  his,  one  of  whom,  the  lady,  was  a  Quaker. 


THE   ANTI-SLAVERY    CONTEST.  105 

day  and  of  the  crowning  catastrophe  of  the  day  fol 
lowing  lay  in  the  spread  of  a  ridiculous  rumor  that 
the  meeting  was  held  in  the  interests  of  amalgamation. 
Amalgamation  was  the  great  bugbear  (or  cantingly 
feigned  to  be  such)  in  those  days  among  the  unedu 
cated  populace.  Not  to  believe  that  Abolitionists 
were  all  rank  amalgamationists  was  as  great  a  heresy 
as  disbelief  in  the  Plot  was  during  the  Lord  George 
Gordon  riots.  Several  incidents  unfortunately  tended 
to  inflame  the  popular  ideas  on  this  occasion.  A 
wealthy  and  educated  young  colored  farmer  hap 
pened  to  come  to  the  Women's  Convention  in  a  car 
riage  with  his  wife,  who  was  darker  than  himself  ; 
whereupon  the  report  went  out  that  a  white  man  had 
brought  a  colored  girl  with  him  in  his  carriage  to  the 
hall.  Again,  the  wife  and  sister-in-law  of  a  respect 
able  colored  citizen  (who  was  the  son  of  a  governor 
of  one  of  the  Southern  States)  were  seen  walking 
with  their  own  cousin,  who  was  darker  than  they, — 
and  the  mob  had  it  that  a  black  man  was  seen  walk 
ing  with  two  pretty  white  girls.  Said  the  "  Coloniza 
tion  Herald  ":  u  In  our  quiet  city  of  Philadelphia,  in 
which  masquerades  are  forbidden  by  legislative 
enactment,  there  has  been,  notwithstanding,  a  season 
of  carnival.  Some  hundreds  of  persons  of  both  sexes 
and  all  colors,  the  more  prominent  of  whom  were 
white,  black,  and  yellow,  had  agreed  to  keep  high 
festival  in  honor  of  a  hybrid  and  piebald  equality, 
which  they  invoked  in  a  new  and  spacious  edifice 
recently  erected  by  some  of  their  associates  in  the 
idolatrous  worship.  .  .  .  But  when  there  was 
seen  here  a  black  beau  escorting  two  interesting  and 
pretty  white  females — there  a  white  man,  more  advanced 


106  JOHN    G.    WHITTIER. 

in  years,  parading  up  and  down  a  street  with  a  sable 
dame  on  each  arm,  and  a  procession  in  the  most  public 
street  of  black  and  white  duly  intermixed  [the  trios  of 
women  before  mentioned]  the  people  began  to 
express  their  dissatisfaction." 

All  through  the  next  day  the  meetings  in  Pennsyl 
vania  Hall  were  disturbed  by  the  mob.  The  presid 
ing  officer  was  Dr.  Daniel  Neall.  An  incident  of  the 
day  is  thus  related  by  Mr.  Whittier: — 

"I  was  standing  near  Dr.  Neall  while  the  glass  of 
the  windows,  broken  by  missiles,  showered  over  him, 
and  a  deputation  of  the  rioters  forced  its  way  to  the 
platform  and  demanded  that  the  meeting  should  be 
closed  at  once.  Dr.  Neall  drew  up  his  tall  form  to 
its  utmost  height. 

"  '  I  am  here,'  he  said,  'the  president  of  this  meet 
ing,  and  I  will  be  torn  in  pieces  before  I  leave  my 
place  at  your  dictation.  Go  back  to  those  who  sent 
you.  I  shall  do  my  duty.'" 

About  sunset,  a  mob  of  twenty-five  thousand  men 
surrounding  the  hall,  the  mayor,  John  Swift,  appeared, 
and  told  the  president  that,  if  the  keys  of  the  building 
were  given  to  him,  he  could  induce  the  rioters  to  dis 
perse.  This  was  done,  and  he  spoke  as  follows  to  the 
crowd:  "  There  will  be  no  meeting  here  this  evening. 
The  house  has  been  given  up  to  me.  The  managers 
had  the  right  to  hold  the  meeting,  but  as  good  citizens 
they  have,  at  my  request,  suspended  their  meeting 
for  this  evening.  We  never  call  out  the  military 
here  !  We  do  not  need  such  measures.  Indeed,  I 
would,  fellow-citizens,  look  upon  you  as  my  police  ! 
I  trust  you  will  abide  by  the  laws  and  keep  order. 
I  now  bid  you  farewell  for  the  night." 


THE    ANTI-SLAVERY    CONTEST.  IOJ 

The  crowd  of  course  understood  the  double  mean 
ing  conveyed  in  these  crafty  and  ambiguous  words, 
and  immediately  shouted,  "The  mayor  won't  hurt 
us — the  mayor  is  our  friend — the  mayor  hates  Amal 
gamation  and  Abolition  as  bad  as  we  do  !  " 

About  seven  and  a  half  o'clock  the  rioters  (con 
spicuous  among  whom  were  a  number  of  Southern 
medical  students)  burst  open  the  door,  broke  out  all 
the  windows  to  let  the  air  have  free  circulation,  tore 
down  the  blinds  and  piled  them  around  the  speaker's 
desk,  adding  books  and  papers  from  the  basement, 
then  set  fire  to  the  heap,  turned  on  the  gas,  and  left 
the  room.  The  crowd  gave  a  great  shout  of  joy  as 
the  smoke  and  flame  appeared.  The  now  thoroughly 
alarmed  mayor  reappears  with  the  High  Sheriff;  they 
are  hustled  unceremoniously  about  by  the  crowd.  A 
number  of  hand  fire-engines  are  tardily  brought 
along  ;  but  the  "  gallant  "  firemen  take  their  cue  from 
the  crowd,  and  the  exact  truth  is  represented  in  the 
quaint  engraving  by  Sartain,  in  the  pamphlet  history 
of  the  hall,  where  the  firemen  are  shown  throwing 
streams  of  water  upon  every  other  building  in  the 
vicinity  except  the  hapless  hall  of  liberty.  "  The  fire- 
companies,"  says  a  Southerner,  writing  to  the  Au 
gusta  "  Chronicle,"  "  repaired  tardily  to  the  scene  of 
action,  and  not  a  drop  of  water  did  they  pour  upon 
that  accursed  Moloch  until  it  was  a  heap  of  ruins. 
Sir,  it  would  have  gladdened  your  heart  to  have  be 
held  that  lofty  tower  of  mischief  enveloped  in 
flames." 

Whittier's  office  in  the  basement  was  looted,  and 
all  his  papers,  books,  and  other  property  destroyed, 
as  were  also  Benjamin  Lundy's  effects, — his  papers, 


108  JOHN    G.    WHITTIER. 

books,  and  all  his  clothing  except  what  he  was  wear 
ing  at  the  time.  The  publication  of  the  "  Pennsyl 
vania  Freeman"  was  not,  however,  suspended,  but 
continued  to  be  edited  by  Whittier  for  over  a  year. 
The  day  after  the  fire,  the  members  of  the  Anti- 
slavery  Society  met  by  the  smoking  ruins,  amid  the 
howling  mob,  and  calmly  transacted  the  business  of 
the  day.  The  tumult  continued  for  a  week,  during 
which  the  Shelter  for  Colored  Orphans  was  partially 
burned.  It  was  also  the  intention  of  the  ruffians  to 
loot  the  house  of  James  and  Lucretia  Mott.  They 
accordingly  made  preparations  to  receive  the  mob  by 
sending  away  the  children  and  a  part  of  their  furni 
ture.  They  then  sat  down  in  the  parlor,  with  a  few 
neighbors,  to  await  the  result.  About  eight  o'clock 
in  the  evening  the  shouts  of  the  mob  could  be  heard 
not  far  off,  now  here,  now  there  ;  but  they  finally 
concluded  to  make  the  Home  for  the  Orphans  the 
object  of  their  attack,  and  so  the  Motts  escaped.1 

The  next  number  of  the  "  Pennsylvania  Freeman  " 
contained  a  full  account  of  the  burning  of  the  hall. a 
I  transcribe  from  Whittier's  editorial  a  few  glowing 
sentences : — 

"  Not  in  vain,  we  trust,  has  the  persecution  fallen  upon  us. 
Fresher  and  purer  for  the  fiery  baptism,  the  cause  lives  in  our 
hearts.  .  .  .  Woe  unto  us  if  we  falter  through  the  fear  of 
man  !  .  .  .  Citizens  of  Pennsylvania  !  your  rights  as  well 
as  ours  have  been  violated  in  this  dreadful  outrage.  .  .  . 
In  the  heart  of  your  free  city,  within  view  of  the  Hall  of  Inde 
pendence,  whose  spire  and  roof  reddened  in  the  flame  of  the 


1  Life  of  the  Motts  by  Mrs.  Hallowell,  p.  129. 
9  Quoted  in  the  "  Liberator,"  June  i,  1838. 


THE    ANTI-SLAVERY    CONTEST.  109 

sacrifice  [with  shame,  perhaps  ?]  the  deed  has  been  done, — and 
the  shout  which  greeted  the  falling  ruin  was  the  shout  of  Slavery 
over  the  grave  of  Liberty.  .  .  .  Are  we  pointed  to  the  smok 
ing  ruins  of  that  beautiful  temple  of  Freedom,  which  we  fondly 
hoped  would  have  long  echoed  the  noble  and  free  sentiments 
of  a  Franklin,  a  Rush,  a  Benezet,  a  Jay ;  and  as  we  look  sadly 
on  its  early  downfall,  are  we  bidden  to  learn  hence  the  fate  of 
our  own  dwellings  if  we  persevere  ?  Think  not  the  intimation 
will  drive  us  from  our  post.  .  .  .  We  feel  that  God  has 
called  us  to  this  work,  and  if  it  be  his  purpose  that  we  should 
finish  what  we  have  begun,  He  can  preserve  us,  though  it  be 
as  in  the  lions'  den,  or  the  sevenfold-heated  furnace." 

Whittier's  lyrics  of  freedom  were  written  in  the 
strength  of  his  mature  and  seasoned  manhood,  and 
were  either  read  at  anti-slavery  gatherings  or  pub 
lished  in  the  Abolition  papers  of  the  time.  They 
often  appeared  anonymously,  but  were  always 
recognized,  copied  in  paper  after  paper,  and  quoted 
again  and  again  in  speeches  and  essays.  Occasion 
ally,  when  recited  in  public  meetings,  their  cutting 
satire  would  cause  the  tumult  of  the  men  of  Alsatia 
to  break  out  with  redoubled  fury.  They  were  imi 
tated  freely  and  copiously  by  the  poetlings  of  the 
day,  and  the  old  files  of  newspapers  contain  many 
and  many  a  poem  written  in  Whittier's  honor  by 
these  worthy  people.  As  appeals  to  manhood  and 
womanhood  and  spurs  to  ideal  action, — the  slogans, 
or  war-cries,  of  the  march, — the  influence  of  Whittip.r's 

voices    of    frppdpf"     wag    rWp    anH     pprrrmnpnf         Like 

grains  of  ambergris  or  pungent  spices,  they  diffused 
their  fiery  quality  through  the  mind  and  stole  softly 
and  unperceived  into  the  heart.  A  whole  generation 
drew  heroic  nourishment  from  them,  as  the  thirsty 


110  JOHN    G.    WHITTIER. 

roots  of  the  willow  draw  water  from  the  brook.  In 
many  families  Whittier's  poems  were  learned  by  the. 
children  for  declamation,  and  recited  in  concert 
around  their  mother's  knee.1  Said  Prof.  J.  B.  Thayer, 
of  Harvard  College,  to  an  instructor  at  the  Friends' 
School  in  Providence,  in  1884,  "  Tell  your  boys  and 
girls  that,  however  much  they  admire  and  love  Whit- 
tier,  they  cannot  know  what  a  fire  and  passion  of 
enthusiasm  he  kindled  in  the  hearts  of  the  little  com 
pany  of  anti-slavery  boys  and  girls  of  my  time,  when 
they  read  his  early  poems."  And  Thomas  Wentworth 
Higginson,  in  a  poem  to  Whittier,  writes: — 

"  At  dawn  of  manhood  came  a  voice  to  me 
That  said  to  startled  conscience,  '  Sleep  no  more ! ' 
*  *  *  *  *  * 

If  any  good  to  me  or  from  me  came 

Through  life,  and  if  no  influence  less  divine 

Has  quite  usurped  the  place  of  duty's  flame ; 

If  aught  rose  worthy  in  this  heart  of  mine, 

Aught  that,  viewed  backward,  wears  no  shade  of  shame ; 

Bless  thee,  old  friend  !  for  that  high  call  was  thine." 

Shortly  after  the  appearance  of  Whittier's  superb 
poem,  "  Massachusetts  to  Virginia," — 

"  We  hear  thy  threats,  Virginia  !  thy  stormy  words  and  high 
Swell  harshly  on  the  Southern  winds  which  melt  along  our 
sky," — 

an  imitative  response,  in  the  same  metre,  was  printed. 
Its  allusions  are  very  interesting  as  showing  how 
Whittier's  lyrics  influenced  people: — 


Lillie  B.  Chace  Wyman,  in  "  Atlantic  Monthly,"  August,  '89 


THE    ANTI-SLAVERY    CONTEST.  Ill 

"  We  greet  thee,  eldest  sister,  that  from  thy  lip  has  broke 
The  voice  of  warning  and  rebuke,  as  if  a  prophet  spoke — 
Unshackled  as  the  mountain  winds  that  o'er  thy  valleys  sweep, 
And,  mingling  with  the  swelling  waves,  their  ocean-anthem 
keep. 

"  Our  yeomanry  have  paused  to  catch  the  spirit-thrilling  tone, 
The  poet's  soul  around  thy  words  has  beautifully  thrown, 
And  the  maiden  stops  her  busy  wheel  to  cast  her  flashing  eye 
Along  the  page  that  seems  to  ring  the  Bay  State's  banner  cry. 

"  The  schoolboy  up  among  our  hills  has  caught  its  words  of 

truth, 

And  shouts  them  with  the  fiery  heart  and  eloquence  of  youth, 
And  moves  the  souls  and  stirs  the  blood  of  gray  and  aged  men, 
As  if  they  heard  the  voice  of  Stark,  or  Langdon's  words  again."  l 

The  following  note  to  the  '37  edition  of  the  poems 
was  probably  penned  by  Garrison,  who  is  thought  to 
have  edited  the  volume.  The  book  was  put  forth  in 
Boston  during  Whittier's  absence.  The  editor  says  : 
"  On  the  appearance  of  these  stanzas  ["  Our  fellow- 
countrymen  in  chains  !  "]  in  the  '  Liberator,'  it  was 
predicted  by  Garrison  that  *  they  would  ring  from 
Maine  to  the  Rocky  Mountains,'  and  the  prophecy 
has  been  fulfilled.  They  have  been  circulated  in 
periodicals,  quoted  in  addresses  and  orations,  and 
scattered  broadcast  over  the  land,  beneath  the  kneel 
ing  slave  and  motto  '  Am  I  not  a  man  and  a  brother  ? ' 
— the  device  of  Cowper  and  the  English  Abolition- 


1  Other  metrical  imitations  were  written  from  Vermont,  Ohio, 
and  Pennsylvania.  Indeed,  their  name  was  legion.  Whittier 
must  have  got  pretty  sick  of  these  parrot-echoes  before  the  fever 
subsided. 


112  JOHN    G.    WHITTIER. 

ists.1  In  this  last  form,  they  have  roused  the  con 
sciences  of  slaveholders  in  New  Orleans,  have  been 
held  up  to  a  Boston  audience  by  the  sophist  Gurley, 
after  a  fruitless  endeavor  to  create  a  tumult  by  one 
of  his  strong  appeals  to  prejudice  and  selfishness, 
and  have  been  displayed  by  the  noble-souled  May 
before  a  Massachusetts  legislature,  as  a  refutation  of 
the  charge  of  incendiarism  cast  on  the  Abolitionists 
by  the  legislature  of  the  South." 

A  reviewer  in  1848  said  of  the  poems  of  freedom  : 
"  We  know  nothing  of  the  physical  mould  of  this  J.  G. 
Whittier  ;  but  if  he  can  speak  his  poems,  breathing 
into  the  delivery  the  same  living  fire  which  is  em 
bodied  in  them,  and  if  he  will  do  it,  even  in  the 
strongholds  of  conventionalism,  in  the  hearing  of 
'  brave  men  and  fair  women,'  the  former  may  restrain 
their  indignation  at  the  wrong  upon  which  he  pours 
his  scathing  reproof,  and  the  latter  may  forbid  their 
tears  to  flow  for  the  suffering  which  he  commiserates, 
if  they  can."  a 

There  is  a  striking  resemblance  between  the  por 
trait  of  Whittier  and  that  of  Ebenezer  Elliott,  the 
English  Corn-Law  rhymer.  Elliott's  poems  were 
published  in  1834  in  book  form,  and  were  often 
quoted  in  anti-slavery  journals.  There  can  be  little 
doubt  that  Whittier's  style  was  influenced  pretty 
strongly  by  Elliott's.  He  and  the  Corn-Law  rhymer 
were  both  ardent  admirers  of  Burns,  and  wrote  many 
of  their  reform  poems  in  Burns's  eight-line  stanza. 


1  The  reference  is  to  a  huge  broadside  containing  the  poem,  and 
headed  by  the  picture  of  a  prodigious  manacled  black. 
*  D.  March,  in  "  New  Englander,"  1848,  p.  63. 


THE    ANTI-SLAVERY    CONTEST.  113 

Out  of  the  half  hundred  or  more  of  the  voices  of 
freedom  I  would  indicate  the  following  round  dozen 
as  by  far  the  best,  and  would  advise  those  first  mak 
ing  Whittier's  acquaintance  to  read  and  re-read  these: 
"  The  Virginia  Slave-Mother's  Lament,"  "  Massachu 
setts  to  Virginia,"  "  The  Branded  Hand,"  "  Paean," 
"  Stanzas  for  the  Times,"  "  The  Hunters  of  Men," 
"  Clerical  Oppressors,"  "  The  Slave-Ships,"  "  Stanzas  " 
(u  Our  fellow-countrymen  in  chains  !  "),  "  Ichabod," 
"  The  Rendition,"  and  "  Laus  Deo  !  "  The  American 
who  can  read  these  splendid  lyrics  without  quickened 
pulse  may  consider  that  his  patriotism  and  his  moral 
sense  are  dead  beyond  recall.  "  The  Virginia  Slave- 
Mother's  Lament,"  wrote  John  Bright  to  a  friend  in 
this  country,  "  has  often  brought  tears  to  my  eyes.  It 
is  short,  but  it  is  worth  a  volume  on  the  great  ques 
tion.  .  .  .  These  few  lines  were  enough  to  rouse 
a  whole  nation  to  expel  from  among  you  the  odious 
crime  of  slavery." 

The  poem  "  Ichabod  "  ("  So  fallen  !  so  lost !  "  etc.), 
concerning  Daniel  Webster's  notorious  volte-face  on 
the  slavery  question,  was  much  admired  by  Emerson. 
It  was  written  at  a  white  heat  of  indignation,  just 
after  Webster's  famous  yth  of  March  speech,  1850, 
in  which  he  argued  that  no  further  restrictions  on 
the  extension  of  slavery  into  the  Territories  of  Cali 
fornia  and  New  Mexico  were  needed,  that  the  Fugitive 
Slave  Law  must  be  obeyed,  that  colonization  of  the 
free  negroes  was  desirable,  and  that  the  labors  of  the 
Abolitionists  had  served  only  to  fasten  the  system  of 
slavery  more  firmly  than  ever  on  the  South.  After 
reading  this  speech,  Whittier  wrote  to  Garrison,  "  The 
scandalous  treachery  of  Webster  and  the  backing  he 
8 


114  JOHN    G.    WHITTIER. 

has  received  from  Andover  and  Harvard  1  show  that 
we  have  nothing  to  hope  for  from  the  great  political 
parties  and  religious  sects."  All  Abolitionists  re 
ceived  the  blow  with  wrath  and  terror,  but  not  with 
surprise.  Webster  had  been  for  ten  years  leaning 
toward  apostasy.  I  find  in  an  old  file  of  anti-slavery 
papers  (as  early  as  1840)  such  sentences  as  these  : 
"  Daniel  Webster  has  at  length  bowed  the  knee  to 
Baal"  (Advocate)]  "Daniel  Webster,  the 'champion 
of  the  Constitution/  has  at  length  consented  to  re 
ceive  the  mark  of  the  beast  in  his  forehead  "  (Philan 
thropist}',  "  he  has  at  length  yielded  a  freeman's  birth 
right  for  a  chance  at  the  Presidency "  (Liberator]. 
Then  when  the  final  blow  came,  in  1850,  "the  Free- 
Soil  party  quivered  and  sank  for  the  moment  be 
neath  the  shock.  The  whole  anti-slavery  movement 
recoiled." 

But  Mr.  Whittier,  at  least,  cherished  no  lasting  re 
sentment.  He  has  stated  that  the  poem  was  com 
posed  after  an  entirely  sleepless  night,  and  that,  if  he 
had  waited  a  couple  of  months,  he  probably  should 
not  have  written  it.  He  thinks  that,  if  Webster  had 
lived  till  the  outbreak  of  the  war,  he  would  have  in 
evitably  been  found  on  the  right  side,  and  would 
have  recovered  his  ancient  renown;  and  he  has  said 
as  much  in  his  poem,  "The  Lost  Occasion."  Else 
where  he  writes: — 

"My  admiration  of  the  splendid  personality  and 
intellectual  power  of  the  great  Senator  was  never 


1  An  address  of  congratulation  was  presented  to  Webster,  signed 
by  eight  hundred  prominent  citizens  of  Massachusetts,  including 
Rufus  Choate,  Wm.  H.  Prescott,  and  Jared  Sparks,  and  Prof. 
C.  C.  Felton  of  Harvard  College. 


THE   ANTI-SLAVERY    CONTEST.  1 15 

stronger  than  when  I  laid  down  his  speech,  and,  in 
one  of  the  saddest  moments  of  my  life,  penned  my 
protest.  I  saw,  as  I  wrote,  with  painful  clearness,  its 
sure  results, — the  slave-power  arrogant  and  defiant, 
strengthened  and  encouraged  to  carry  out  its  scheme 
for  the  extension  of  its  baleful  system,  or  the  disso 
lution  of  the  Union,  the  guaranties  of  personal  liberty 
in  the  free  States  broken  down,  and  the  whole  coun 
try  made  the  hunting-ground  of  slave-catchers.  In 
the  horror  of  such  a  vision,  so  soon  fearfully  fulfilled, 
if  one  spoke  at  all,  he  could  only  speak  in  tones  of 
stern  and  sorrowful  rebuke."  "  Ichabod  "  should  be 
read  in  connection  with  the  strong  and  indignant 
"Stanzas  for  the  Times:  1850,"  written  on  the  same 
subject.  The  poem  "  Ichabod  "  has  been  compared 
to  Browning's  "  Lost  Leader": — 

"  Just  for  a  handful  of  silver  he  left  us, 
Just  for  a  riband  to  stick  in  his  coat — 


He  alone  breaks  from  the  van  and  the  freemen, 
He  alone  sinks  to  the  rear  and  the  slaves. 


Deeds  will  be  done — while  he  boasts  his  quiescence, 

Still  bidding"  crouch  whom  the  rest  bade  aspire  ; 
Blot  out  his  name,  then,  record  one  lost  soul  more." 

Mr.  Stedman  has  also  compared,  or  rather  con 
trasted,  "  Ichabod  "  with  William  W.  Lord's  remark 
able  lines  "On  the  Defeat  of  a  Great  Man,"  suggested 
by  Folk's  victory  over  Henry  Clay  in  the  presidential 
campaign  of  1843  : — 


Il6  JOHN    G.    WHITTIER. 

Fallen  !     How  fallen  ?     States  and  empires  fall ; 

O'er  towers  and  rock-built  walls, 
And  perished  nations,  floods  to  tempests  call 
With  hollow  sound  along  the  sea  of  time  : 

The  great  man  never  falls, — 
He  lives,  he  towers  aloft,  he  stands  sublime  ; 

They  fall  who  give  him  not 
The  honor  here  that  suits  his  future  name, — 

They  die  and  are  forgot. 

O  Giant  loud  and  blind  !  the  great  man's  fame 
Is  his  own  shadow,  and  not  cast  by  thee  : 

A  shadow  that  shall  grow 
As  down  the  heaven  of  time  the  sun  descends, 

And  on  the  world  shall  throw 
His  godlike  image,  till  it  sinks  where  blends 
Time's  dim  horizon  with  Eternity. 

There  are  a  few  other  of  the  anti-slavery  and  reform 
pieces  that  need  words  of  comment  or  illustration 
other  than  those  given  by  Whittier  in  his  latest 
edition. 

For  example,  "  The  Burial  of  Barber "  (spelled 
"Barbour"  in  early  editions).  Thos.  W.  Barber,  the 
second  martyr  of  freedom  in  Kansas,  was  shot  dead, 
Dec.  6,  1855,  near  Lawrence,  by  Geo.  W.  Clarke, 
Indian  agent.  The  impressive  funeral  services  were 
held  in  the  dining-room  of  a  newly  erected  building. 
The  walls  of  the  room  were  of  rough  unplastered 
limestone,  and  seats  of  plank  were  placed  in  rows  its 
entire  length.  The  funeral  cortege  was  a  long  and 
solemn  one,  stretching  nearly  a  mile  over  the  prairie, 
many  riding  in  ox-carts  and  mule-carts,  and  the 
soldiers  marching  with  arms  reversed.1 


1  "  Annals  of  Kansas,"  1856. 


THE   ANTI-SLAVERY    CONTEST.  117 

"  The  Branded  Hand  "  refers  to  Captain  Jonathan 
Walker  of  Harwich,  Massachusetts.  While  working 
as  a  railroad  contractor  in  Florida  (having  emigrated 
thither  with  his  family),  he  became  interested  in  the 
slaves,  employed  them,  treated  them  like  men,  and 
won  their  affection.  In  1844  he  took  seven  of  these 
slaves  in  his  open  boat  south  along  the  coast  from 
Pensacola,  hoping  to  get  them  to  one  of  the  West 
India  Islands.  But  he  fell  very  ill,  it  being  hot  July, 
and  the  whole  party  was  captured.  Walker  was  put 
in  irons,  carried  back  to  Pensacola,  subjected  to  the 
ignominy  of  the  pillory,  branded  on  his  right  hand 
by  a  United  States  marshal  with  the  letters  S.  S. 
(slave-stealer),  kept  for  eleven  months  chained  to  the 
floor  of  a  cell  bare  of  all  furniture,  ill  and  emaciated 
as  he  was,  and  only  released  after  the  payment  of  his 
fine  of  $150  by  Northern  Abolitionists.  The  brand 
ing  was  done  by  binding  his  hand  to  a  post  and  ap 
plying  a  red-hot  iron  to  the  palm,  which  left  the 
letters  about  an  inch  long  and  an  eighth  of  an  inch 
deep,  as  shown  in  the  cut.1  The  brander  was  a  Maine 
man  named  Dorr, — another  proof  of  the  frequent 
assertion  that  New  Englanders  made  the  crudest 
slaveholders.  "  Lift  up  that  manly  right  hand,"  cries 
the  poet, — 

"  Hold  it  up  before  our  sunshine,  up  against  our  northern  air, — 
Ho !  men  of  Massachusetts,  for  the  love  of  God,  look  there  ! 


1  The  cut  is  from  a  daguerreotype  of  Captain  Walker's  hand, 
owned  by  Dr.  Henry  I.  Bowditch.  Reproduced  in  the  "  Liberator," 
xv.  132,  to  accompany  Whittier's  poem  on  the  subject  ;  also  given 
in  one  of  the  anti-slavery  almanacs. 


Il8  JOHN     G.    WHITTIER.     . 

Take  it,  henceforth,  for  your  standard,  like  the  Bruce's  heart 
of  yore, 

In  the  dark  strife  closing  round  ye,  let  that  hand  be  seen  be 
fore  ! " 


Captain  Walker  removed  to  Muskegon,  Michigan. 
His  branded  hand  got  him  much  respect  among  his 
townsmen,  and  at  his  death  he  received  marked  civic 
honors.  A  granite  monument  costing  $700  was 
erected  over  his  grave  by  Photius  Fiske  of  Boston, — 
that  eccentric,  good,  rich  little  Greek  fellow,  whose 
benefactions  to  unfortunates  have  been  innumerable, 
and  who  has  also  erected  a  monument  to  Charles  T. 
Torrey  in  Auburn's  Field  of  God,  and  others  to  other 
anti-slavery  martyrs.  When  his  tomb  and  theirs  are 
mossy  with  age,  may  some  Old  Immortality  be  as 
kind  to  them  as  he  has  been  to  the  memory  of  the 
heroic  dead! 

Whittier's  poem  "  Texas,"  as  first  printed,  may  be 
seen  in  the  "  Liberator,"  April  19,  1844.  One  of  its 
stanzas  was  afterwards  so  altered  as  not  to  put  the 
North  in  the  position  of  a  people  demanding  dis 
union.  Then  the  following  new  lines  were  added: — 

"  Vainly  shall  your  sand-wrought  rope 
Bind  the  starry  cluster  up, 
Shattered  over  heaven's  blue  cope." 

The  phrases  changed   in  other  stanzas  seem  to  me 


THE    ANTI-SLAVERY    CONTEST.  lip 

weakened.  In  the  third  triplet  from  the  end,  as  the 
poem  now  stands,  the  line  "  as  the  lost  in  Paradise  " 
was  "  as  the  damned  in  Paradise  ";  and  a  line  in  the 
following  cluster  stood,  "  Freedom's  brown  and  hon 
est  hand  "  ("  brown  "  changed  to  "  strong").  Other 
lines  in  other  poems  have  been  clearly  injured  by  re 
vision, — as  the  first  in  the  "  Lines"  on  the  Pinckney 
Resolutions,  "  Men  of  the  North-land  !  where  's  the 
manly  spirit,"  which  originally  read,  "  Now,  by  our 
fathers'  ashes  !  where  's  the  spirit."  1 

"  Rantoul "  was  penned  in  grief  over  the  death  of 
Robert  Rantoul,  the  orator  and  statesman  of  Beverly, 
Essex  County,  Massachusetts.  He  was  a  fellow- 
member  of  Whittier  in  the  Massachusetts  legisla 
ture  in  1835.  He  became  Webster's  successor  in 
Congress,  was  a  leader  in  the  Free-Soil  party,  and  a 
man  of  rare  political  genius  and  promise. 

"  One  day,  along  the  electric  wire 

His  manly  word  for  Freedom  sped ; 

We  came  next  morn :  that  tongue  of  fire 

Said  only,  '  He  who  spake  is  dead  ! '  " 

"William  Francis  Bartlett "  commemorates  Gen 
eral  Bartlett,  another  brave  and  lamented  soldier  of 
Essex  County.  He  was  the  son  of-  a  Boston  merchant, 
though  born  in  Haverhill.  He  was  appointed  cap 
tain  in  the  2oth  Massachusetts  Regiment  while  yet  a 
student  at  Harvard.  He  was  in  the  battles  of  the 

1  Good  "  Saint  James  "  Freeman  Clarke,  in  his  Louisville  "  West 
ern  Messenger"  of  December,  1836,  says  the  Pinckney  lines  are 
"  almost  *>qual  to  anything  in  Campbell"!  "  Although  no  friend 
of  Abolitionism,"  he  says,  "  we  like  good  poetry  on  any  and  every 
subject-'* 


120  JOHN     G.    WHITTIER. 

Wilderness,  and  lost  a  leg  and  was  otherwise  wounded 
in  the  service.     He  died  in  1876: — 

"  Mourn,  Essex,  on  thy  sea-blown  shore 

Thy  beautiful  and  brave, 
Whose  failing  hand  the  olive  bore, 
Whose  dying  lips  forgave  !  " 

The  poem  "  To  Ronge  "  opens  with  the  tremendous 
apostrophe: — 

"  Strike  home,  strong-hearted  man  !     Down  to  the  root 
Of  old  oppression  sink  the  Saxon  steel  ! 
Thy  work  is  to  hew  down.     In  God's  name  then 
Put  nerve  into  thy  task  !  " 

Jean  Ronge  (Le  Cure  Ronge)  of  Silesia  may  be 
styled  the  founder  of  the  Old  Catholic  movement  of 
religious  reform,  of  which  Dr.  Doellinger  is  a  more 
recent  leader.  In  1844  Ronge  published  a  remarkable 
letter  (said  to  have  been  written  by  another)  in  the 
"  Feuilles  Nationales,"  in  which  he  ridiculed  the 
superstitious  credulity  of  the  hundreds  of  thousands 
of  pilgrims  who  were  visiting  Treves,  by  invitation 
of  its  Bishop,  Arnoldi,  to  see  the  seamless  robe  of 
Christ.  Ronge  advocated  complete  separation  of  all 
true  Christians  from  the  Church  of  Rome,  and  a  new 
organization  was  actually  formed.  But  in  1848  came 
the  democratic  uprisings  all  over  Europe,  turning 
men's  thoughts  into  new  channels.  Ronge  adopted 
radical  views,  was  made  a  member  of  the  National 
Assembly  at  Frankfort,  but  in  '49  (in  consequence 
of  certain  incoherent  articles  published  by  him)  was 
compelled  to  fly,  with  many  other  political  exiles,  to 


THE    ANTI-SLAVERY    CONTEST.  121 

the  shores  of  England.1  He  had  married  a  divorced 
lady,  the  sister-in-law  of  Carl  Schurz.  Martineau 
and  other  Unitarians  in  England  had  thought  highly 
of  Ronge,  but  his  personal  presence  and  ways  disen 
chanted  them,  and  they  soon  dropped  him.  He  seems 
not  to  have  had  the  Lutherian  qualities  necessary 
for  leadership,  although  Whittier  in  America  hailed 
his  movement  as  one  calculated  to  advance  the  inter 
ests  of  freedom  in  Europe. 

One  of  the  most  graphic  of  the  slavery  lyrics  is  the 
poem  uTo  Governor  McDuffie,"  which  has  not  been 
reprinted  since  1838  or  1840.  Probably  it  is  regarded 
by  the  poet  as  too  personal,  too  severe  in  tone,  to  say 
nothing  of  its  two  blunders  in  grammar  and  quan 
tity.  But  poets  are  not  always  the  best  judges  of 
the  merits  of  their  own  work.  There  is  a  fierce 
sharp  rhythm  and  clash  as  of  steel  in  this  poem, — a 
kind  of 

"  Suono  1'  un  brando  e  1'  altro,  or  basso,  or  alto," — 

which,  joined  with  the  fact  that  Whittier's  friends 
have  besought  him  to  include  it  in  his  works,  leads 
me  to  venture  to  present  it  here.  The  full  statement 
by  Governor  George  McDuffie,  as  given  in  his  mes 
sage  of  1835,  was  this:  "  Domestic  slavery,  instead  of 
being  a  political  evil,  is  the  corner-stone  of  our 
republican  edifice," — a  sufficiently  exasperating  state 
ment,  surely,  to  an  Abolitionist.  McDuffie's  dictum 
was  "indorsed  without  reserve  "  by  Governor  Ham- 


1  Larousse,  "  Dictionnaire  Universal. "  The  best  article  about 
Ronge  appeared  in  the  "  Unitarian  Review,"  of  Boston,  January, 
1888,  by  John  Fret  well. 


122  JOHN     G.    WHITTIER. 

mond  of  South  Carolina,  It  was  McDuffie  who  said 
that  "the  institution  of  slavery  supersedes  the 
necessity  of  an  order  of  nobility." 

TO  GOVERNOR  McDUFFIE. 

"The  patriarchal  institution  of  slavery,"—  "  the  corner-stone  of  our  re. 
publican  edifice."  —  Goi>. 


King  of  Carolina—  hail  ! 

Last  champion  of  Oppression's  battle, 
Lord  of  rice-tierce  and  cotton-bale, 

Of  sugar-box  and  human  cattle  ! 
Around  thy  temples,  green  and  dark, 

Thy  own  tobacco-wreath  reposes  ; 
Thyself,  a  brother  Patriarch 

Of  Isaac,  Abraham,  and  Moses  ! 

Why  not  ?     Their  household  rule  is  thine  ; 

Like  theirs,  thy  bondmen  feel  its  rigor  ; 
And  thine,  perchance,  as  concubine, 

Some  swarthy  counterpart  of  Hagar. 
Why  not  ?     Like  patriarchs  of  old, 

The  priesthood  is  thy  chosen  station  ; 
Like  them  thou  payest  thy  rites  to  gold,  — 

And  Aaron's  calf  of  Nullification. 

All  fair  and  softly  !    Must  we,  then, 

From  Ruin's  open  jaws  to  save  us, 
Upon  our  own  free  workingmen 

Confer  a  master's  special  favors  ? 
Whips  for  the  back  —  chains  for  the  heels  — 

Hooks  for  the  nostrils  of  Democracy, 
Before  it  spurns  as  well  as  feels 

The  riding  of  the  Aristocracy  ! 

Ho  !  fishermen  of  Marblehead  ! 
Ho  !  Lynn  cordwainers,  leave  your  leather, 


THE    ANTI-SLAVERY    CONTEST.  123 

And  wear  the  yoke  in  kindness  made, 
And  clank  your  needful  chains  together  ! 

Let  Lowell  mills  their  thousands  yield, 
Down  let  the  rough  Vermonter  hasten, 

Down  from  the  workshop  and  the  field, 
And  thank  us  for  each  chain  we  fasten. 

SLAVES  in  the  rugged  Yankee  land  ! 

I  tell  thee,  Carolinian,  never ! 
Our  rocky  hills  and  iron  strand 

Are  free,  and  shall  be  free  forever. 
The  surf  shall  wear  that  strand  away, 

Our  granite  hills  in  dust  shall  moulder, 
Ere  Slavery's  hateful  yoke  shall  lay, 

Unbroken,  on  a  Yankee's  shoulder  ! 

No,  George  McDuffie  !  keep  thy  words 

For  the  mail-plunderers  of  thy  city, 
Whose  robber-right  is  in  their  swords ; 

For  recreant  Priest  and  Lynch-Committee ! 
Go,  point  thee  to  thy  cannon's  mouth, 

And  swear  its  brazen  lips  are  better, 
To  guard  "  the  interests  of  the  South," 

Than  parchment  scroll  or  Charter's  letter.1 

We  fear  not.     Streams  which  brawl  most  loud 

Along  their  course  are  oftenest  shallow ; 
And  loudest  to  a  doubting  crowd 

The  coward  publishes  his  valor. 
Thy  courage  has  at  least  been  shown 

In  many  a  bloodless  Southern  quarrel, 
Facing,  with  hartshorn  and  cologne, 

The  Georgian's  harmless  pistol-barrel.2 


1  See  speech  of  Governor  McDuffie  to  an  artillery  company  in 
Charleston. 

2  [The  allusion  is  to  a  ridiculous  affair  of  honor  between  Mc 
Duffie  and  Colonel  Cummings,  of  Georgia,  for  which  the  two  men 
fortified  themselves  with  eau  de  cologne  and  spirits  of  hartshorn.] 


124  JOHN     G.    WHITTIER. 

No,  Southron  !  not  in  Yankee  land 

Will  threats  like  thine  a  fear  awaken  ; 
The  men  who  on  their  charter  stand 

For  truth  and  right,  may  not  be  shaken. 
Still  shall  that  truth  assail  thine  ear ; 

Each  breeze,  from  Northern  mountains  blowing, 
The  tones  of  Liberty  shall  bear, — 

God's  "  free  incendiaries  "  going  ! 

We  give  thee  joy  !     Thy  name  is  heard 

With  reverence  on  the  Neva's  borders ; 
And  "  turban'd  Turk,"  and  Poland's  lord, 

And  Metternich,  are  thy  applauders. 
Go,  if  thou  lov'st  such  fame,  and  share 

The  mad  Ephesian's  base  example, — 
The  holy  bonds  of  UNION  tear, 

And  clap  the  torch  to  FREEDOM'S  temple ! 

Do  this — Heaven's  frown,  thy  country's  curse, 

Guilt's  fiery  torture  ever  burning, 
The  quenchless  thirst  of  Tantalus, 

And  Ixion's  wheel  forever  turning — 
A  name  for  which  "  the  pain'dest  fiend 

Below  "  his  own  would  barter  never, — 
These  shall  be  thine  unto  the  end, 

Thy  damning  heritage  forever  ! 

Another  poem  that  was  dropped  from  the  collected 
works  some  forty-five  years  ago  is  "  Stanzas  for  the 
Times."  It  appeared  in  '39,  and  was  called  out  by 
the  apostasy  of  David  R.  Porter,  Governor  of  Penn 
sylvania,  to  the  cause  of  freedom.  He  had  once  cast 
his  vote  in  the  Pennsylvania  legislature  in  favor  of 
suppressing  slavery  in  the  District  of  Columbia,  but 
afterwards  swung  over  to  the  pro-slavery  side. 
Whittier's  indignation  bursts  forth  in  the  following 
fiery  verses  :— 


THE    ANTI-SLAVERY    CONTEST.  125 

"  Go,  eat  thy  words.     Shall  Henry  Clay 

Turn  round, — a  moral  Harlequin? 
And  arch  Van  Buren  wipe  away 

The  stains  of  his  Missouri  sin  ? 
And  shall  that  one  unlucky  vote 
Stick  burr-like  in  thy  honest  throat  ? 

"  No  :  do  thy  part  in  putting  down 

The  friends  of  Freedom, — summon  out 

The  parson  in  his  saintly  gown, 
To  curse  the  outlawed  roundabout, 

In  concert  with  the  Belial  brood — 

The  Balaam  of  '  the  brotherhood  ! ' 

"Quench  every  free  discussion  light, 

Clap  on  the  legislative  snuffers, 
And  caulk,  with  *  resolutions  '  tight, 

The  ghastly  rents  the  Union  suffers! 
Let  Church  and  State  brand  Abolition 
As  Heresy  and  rank  Sedition. 

"  Choke  down  at  once  each  breathing  thing 

That  whispers  of  the  Rights  of  Man : 
Gag  the  free  girl  who  dares  to  sing 

Of  Freedom  o'er  her  dairy  pan ; 
Dog  the  old  farmer's  steps  about, 
And  hunt  his  cherished  treason  out. 

"  Go  hunt  sedition.     Search  for  that 

In  every  pedler's  cart  of  rags ; 
Pry  into  every  Quaker's  hat 

And  Dr.  Fussell's  saddle-bags, 
Lest  treason  wrap,  with  all  its  ills, 
Around  his  powders  and  his  pills. 

"  Where  Chester's  oak  and  walnut  shades 

With  slavery-laden  breezes  stir, 

And  on  the  hills  and  in  the  glades 

Qf  Bucks  and  honest  Lancaster, 


126  JOHN    G.    WHITTIER. 

Are  heads  which  think  and  hearts  which  feel,- 
Flints  to  the  Abolition  steel ! 

"  Ho  !  send  ye  down  a  corporal's  guard 
With  flow  of  flag  and  beat  of  drum, — 

Storm  Lindley  Coates's  poultry-yard, 
Beleaguer  Thomas  Whitson's  home  ! 

Beat  up  the  Quaker  quarters, — show 

Your  valor  to  an  unarmed  foe ! 

"  Do  more.     Fill  up  your  loathsome  jails 

With  faithful  men  and  women, — set 
The  scaffold  up  in  these  green  vales, 

And  let  their  verdant  turf  be  wet 
With  blood  of  unresisting  men, — 
Ay,  do  all  this,  and  more, — WHAT  THEN  ? 

"  Think  ye  one  heart  of  man  or  child 

Will  falter  from  its  lofty  faith, 
At  the  mob's  tumult,  fierce  and  wild, — 

The  prison  cell,— the  shameful  death  ? 
No,  nursed  in  storm  and  trial  long, 
The  weakest  of  our  band  is  strong. 

"  We  cannot  falter !     Did  we  so, 

The  stones  beneath  would  murmur  out, 
And  all  the  winds  that  round  us  blow 
Would  whisper  of  our  shame  about. 
No,  let  the  tempest  rock  the  land, 
Our  faith  shall  live,  our  truth  shall  stand. 

"  True  as  the  Vaudois,  hemmed  around 
With  Papal  fire  and  Roman  steel,— 
Firm  as  the  Christian  heroine,  bound 
Upon  Domitian's  torturing  wheel, 
We  'bate  no  breath,  we  curb  no  thought : 
Come  what  may  come,  WE  FALTER  NOT  ! " 


THE    ANTI-SLAVERY    CONTEST.  127 

Of  the  anti-slavery  verses  written  for  special 
occasions  or  drawn  out  by  startling  events,  Mr. 
Whittier  says  : — 

"  Of  their  defects  from  an  artistic  point  of  view  it 
is  not  necessary  to  speak.  They  were  the  earnest 
and  often  vehement  expression  of  the  writer's 
thought  and  feeling  at  critical  periods  in  the  great 
conflict  between  Freedom  and  Slavery.  They  were 
written  with  no  expectation  that  they  would  survive 
the  occasions  which  called  them  forth  ;  they  were 
protests,  alarm-signals,  trumpet-calls  to  action, 
words  wrung  from  the  writer's  heart,  forged  at  white 
heat,  and  of  course  lacking  the  finish  and  careful 
word-selection  which  reflection  and  patient  brooding 
over  them  might  have  given.  Such  as  they  are,  they 
belong  to  the  history  of  the  anti-slavery  movement, 
and  may  serve  as  way-marks  of  its  progress."  1 

Some  of  the  most  glowing  of  the  poems  of  free 
dom  were  printed  as  broadsides  or  on  cards.  Such 
were  "  Stanzas "  ("  Our  fellow-countrymen  in 
chains  !  "),  and  the  "  Kansas  Emigrants  "  song.  The 
circumstances  that  gave  birth  to  this  famous  march 
ing  song  were  as  follows  :  Kansas  and  Nebraska  had 
been  opened  up  for  settlement,  and  a  stream  of 
emigration  had  set  in.  The  hope  of  the  Free-Soilers 
was  that  it  would  be  settled  by  an  anti-slavery 
population.  Eli  Thayer  of  Massachusetts  caught  up 
the  idea,  and,  apparently  from  interested  motives, 
organized  a  company,  raised  money,  and  sent  out 
band  after  band  of  New  England  Free-Soil  settlers  to 
hold  Kansas  for  the  North.  With  him  were  asso- 


Preface  to  the  edition  of  1888. 


128  JOHN    G.    WHITTIER. 

ciated  Edward  Everett  Hale  and  others.  Thayer  has 
written  an  intemperate  and  boastful  book,  in  which, 
like  another  Colossus,  he  bestrides  the  Union,  and 
dares  it  to  say  he  did  n't  save  it,  by  saving  Kansas.1 
But  we  are  not  concerned  as  to  the  exact  amount  of 
his  service  to  the  government.  Suffice  it  to  say  that, 
directly  or  indirectly,  he  sent  out  some  four  or  five 
thousand  men  to  Kansas  and  settled  them  there. 
The  departure  of  the  first  band  from  Boston,  by  rail 
road,  was  witnessed  by  an  immense  and  enthusiastic 
crowd,  extending  along  the  track  for  several  blocks. 
All  through  New  England  and  the  Middle  and  West 
ern  Middle  States  the  progress  of  the  party  was  a 
continued  ovation  from  cheering  crowds.  This  first 
company  founded  the  city  of  Lawrence.  Before  they 
started,  Mr.  Whittier  sent  them  his  "  Kansas  Emi 
grants  "  song, — 

"  We  cross  the  prairies  as  of  old 
The  Pilgrims  crossed  the  sea, 
To  make  the  West  as  they  the  East 
The  homestead  of  the  free." 

The  song  was  actually  sung,  says  Mr.  Hale, — sung 
when  they  started,  sung  as  they  journeyed,  and  sung 
in  their  new  home.  To  better  adapt  it  to  a  company 
of  persons,  a  chorus  was  originally  appended  to  each 
stanza,  thus  : — 

Chorus. — "  The  homestead  of  the  free,  my  boys, 

The  homestead  of  the  free. 
To  make  the  West  as  they  the  East 
The  homestead  of  the  free." 


1  See  a  caustic  review  of  his  book  in  "  Nation,"  Nov.  7,  1889, 
probably  by  Wendell  Phillips  Garrison. 


THE    ANTI-SLAVERY    CONTEST.  1 29 

In  virtue  of  this  song,  as  well  as  his  "  Marais  du 
Cygne  "  and  "  Burial  of  Barber,"  Whittier  to-day 
holds  a  warm  place  in  the  affections  of  the  people  of 
Kansas. 

During  the  Civil  War  many  of  the  poems  of  Whit- 
tier  were  committed  to  memory  and  a  few  of  them 
sung  by  the  Union  soldiers.1  A  signal  testimony  to 
the  power  of  his  verse  is  attested  by  the  case  of  the 
Hutchinson  family  and  Whittier's  "  Ein'  Feste  Burg." 
This  war  lyric  was  published  in  the  New  York  "  Inde 
pendent  "  in  July,  '61,  in  the  very  first  days  of  the  war. 
It  was  at  once  adopted  by  the  people  as  a  campaign 
song.  In  the  early  period  of  the  contest  the  members 
of  the  Hutchinson  family  (already  long  known  and 
admired  by  the  public),  divided  into  several  bands, 
were  accustomed  to  visit  recruiting  stations  and  sing 
for  the  purpose  of  inspiring  patriotic  valor  and 
encouraging  volunteer  enlistments.  After  the  dis 
couraging  defeat  of  Bull  Run,  they  went  to  Virginia, 
very  properly  thinking,  I  suppose,  that  that  was  the 
place  where  they  were  most  needed.  They  entered  the 
national  lines,  but  were  expelled  by  General  McClellan 
for  singing  Whittier's  "  Ein'  Feste  Burg,"  the  spirited 
third  stanza  (given  below)  being  especially  dangerous, 
thought  McClellan,  who  still  hoped,  with  Lincoln, 
that  a  peace  might  be  patched  up  with  the  South  : — 

"  What  gives  the  wheat-field  blades  of  steel  ? 
What  points  the  rebel  cannon  ? 


1  Collections  of  patriotic  songs  of  that  time  generally  contain 
only  two  or  three  poems  by  Whittier,  such  as  "  The  Crisis,"  and 
"  Ein'  Feste  Burg."  His  verses  were  read  more  than  they  were  sung. 

9 


130  JOHN    G.    WHITTIER. 

What  sets  the  roaring  rabble's  heel 
On  the  old  star-spangled  pennon  ? 

What  breaks  the  oath 

Of  the  men  o'  the  South  ? 

What  whets  the  knife 

For  the  Union's  life  ? 
Hark  to  the  answer :  Slavery  ! " 

The  Hutchinson  family  appealed  to  President  Lin 
coln.  The  poem  was  formally  read  in  Cabinet  meet 
ing  by  Secretary  Chase,  and  the  President  said,  "  It 
is  just  the  kind  of  a  song  I  want  the  soldiers  to  hear." 
By  the  unanimous  vote  of  the  Cabinet,  then,  and  by 
order  of  the  President,  the  singers  were  readmitted 
to  the  national  camps.1 

But,  however  marked  may  have  been  the  influence 
of  Whittier's  poems  in  the  war  days,  let  us  beware 
of  claiming  for  him  or  for  any  one  person  an  undue 
share  in  the  honor  of  having  saved  the  country. 
Nothing  could  shock  his  modesty  or  hurt  his  feelings 
more  than  such  a  claim.  It  was,  indeed,  not  the  labor 
of  Benjamin  Lundy,  or  of  John  Brown,  or  Mrs. 
Stowe,  or  Eli  Thayer,  or  William  Lloyd  Garrison,  or 
John  G.  Whittier,  or  Abraham  Lincoln,  that  saved 
the  Union  and  abolished  slavery, — not  the  work  of 
any  one  of  these  alone,  nor  of  the  armies  of  the  North 
alone,  nor  of  the  farmers  and  merchants  who  furnished 
food,  clothes,  and  weapons  ;  but  it  was  the  toil  of  all 
these  together  that  brought  about  the  result. 

Mr.  Whittier's  feeling  about  the  war  was  regret 
mingled  with  resignation  to  "  God's  will,"  and  a 


1  Appleton's  Cyclopaedia  of  Biography,  iii.  334. 


THE    ANTI-SLAVERY    CONTEST.  13! 

patriotic  acquiescence  in  what  seemed  an  unavoidable 
calamity.  He  recognized  that  God  is  sometimes  in 
the  whirlwind  as  well  as  in  the  still  small  voice.  He 
believed  that  the  mission  of  the  Friends  in  the  war 
was  to  care  for  the  slave  and  the  freedman  and  for 
the  wounded.  He,  as  well  as  Garrison,  was  sadly 
tried  by  President  Lincoln's  cautious  and  conciliatory 
measures  as  to  slavery.  Those  shackles  and  chains, 
those  fellow-men  in  bondage, — these  were  the 
matters  that  fretted  and  chafed  him.  Garrison  and 
Phillips  were  even  ready  for  disunion,  if  our  skirts 
could  not  be  cleared  of  the  sin  of  slavery  in  any  other 
way.  Not  so  Lincoln, — a  man  of  much  profounder 
statesmanship  than  any  one  of  the  three  Abolition 
chiefs.  The  blood  circulated  slowly  through  his 
gigantic  frame,  and  he  was  slow  in  reaching  his  con 
clusions.  But  he  early  saw  the  vital  necessity  of  pre 
serving  the  union  of  the  States.  The  recently  issued 
lives  of  him  by  his  law  partner  and  by  his  private 
secretaries  show  how  deeply  he  abhorred  slavery. 
But  he  felt  his  way  slowly  and  cautiously  to  emanci 
pation.  He  sagaciously  refused  to  move  in  national 
matters  until  he  felt  that  the  inertia  of  the  people 
was  overcome  and  that  they  were  ready  for  change. 
He  was  a  profound  calculator  of  forces  and  events. 
There  was  that  in  him  that  matched  the  long  suffer 
ance  and  taciturnity  of  nature.  Undoubtedly,  his 
feelings  about  slavery  were  not  so  fiery-indignant  as 
those  of  the  Abolitionists.  He  viewed  everything  in 
tellectually.  Like  Carlyle,  he  did  not  consider  slav 
ery  absolutely  the  worst  thing  under  the  sun.  In  his 
public  letter  to  Horace  Greeley  he  affirmed  that, 
while  he  wished  all  men  to  be  free,  he  could  only 


132  JOHN    G.    WHITTIER. 

work  for  immediate  emancipation  if  he  were  con 
vinced  that  it  would  help  to  save  the  Union.  And, 
although  he  cherished  a  secret  ambition  to  go  down 
to  posterity  as  the  emancipator  of  the  North  Ameri 
can  slaves,  he  would  by  no  means  allow  emancipa 
tion  to  get  between  his  feet  and  trip  him  up  while  he 
was  trying  to  save  the  country.  He  never  abolished 
slavery  at  all  in  the  loyal  border  States,  always  shun 
ning  to  exasperate  the  feelings  of  these  States,  and 
promptly  annulling  the  premature  proclamations  of 
freedom  by  Generals  Fremont  and  J.  J.  Piatt  in  Mis 
souri  and  Maryland  respectively.  Lincoln,  in  his 
large-hearted  charity,  pitied  the  masters  of  the  slaves, 
and  the  Abolitionists  did  not, — that  was  the  great 
difference  between  them.  He  even  favored  coloniza 
tion,  and  kept  bringing  forward  his  scheme  of  gradual 
emancipation,  with  the  issue  to  the  planters  of  in 
demnity  bonds,  or  immediate  emancipation,  with  a 
remuneration  in  cash  from  the  national  treasury  for 
each  slave  freed  (the  very  measures  once  proposed  by 
Washington).  And  when  the  war  was  practically 
over,  just  a  few  weeks  before  the  insane  act  of  his 
assassination,  this  best  friend  of  the  South  proposed 
to  his  Cabinet  a  measure  for  creating  a  fund  of  $400,- 
000,000  for  the  indemnity  of  Southern  planters.  All 
along,  his  idea  was  to  hold  the  raft  well  together  by 
patience  and  tact.  Broken  eggs  can  never  be  mended, 
was  his  homely  illustration.  His  Emancipation 
Proclamation,  when  it  came,  was  only  an  incident  of 
war,  and  slavery  was  only  completely  abolished  years 
afterwards  by  the  Amendment  to  the  Constitution. 
It  was  natural  for  such  men  as  Whittier,  with  whom 
the  slave  question  was  of  most  concern,  to  be  queru- 


THE    ANTI-SLAVERY    CONTEST.  133 

lous  and  impatient  with  the  President.  In  a  moment 
of  disgust,  Garrison  once  said  that  Lincoln  had  not 
a  drop  of  anti-slavery  blood  in  his  veins.  And  at 
another  time  he  wrote,  "  Lincoln  is  very  weak  in  the 
joints,  and  wholly  unqualified  to  lead  or  inspire." 
But  this  was  in  1861.  He  learned  to  put  greater  trust 
in  him  later.  In  September,  1861,  Whittier  wrote  to 
Lydia  Maria  Child,  apropos  of  Fremont's  proclama 
tion  of  freedom  : — 

"I  am  afraid  the  Government  will  tie  up  the  hands 
of  Fremont.  I  was  just  thinking  of  trying  to  thank 
him  for  his  noble  word  '  free,'  when,  lo  !  the  papers 
this  morning  bring  us  Lincoln's  letter  to  him,  repu 
diating  the  grand  utterance.  Well,  if  the  confiscated 
slaves  are  not  free,  then  the  Government  has  turned 
slaveholder,  that  is  all. 

"  I  am  sick  of  politicians.  I  know  and  appreciate 
the  great  difficulties  in  the  way  of  the  administration, 
but  I  see  neither  honesty  nor  worldly  wisdom  in 
attempting  to  ignore  the  cause  of  the  trouble. 

"  They  tell  us  we  must  trust,  and  have  patience  ; 
and  I  do  not  like  to  find  fault  with  the  administra 
tion,  as  in  so  doing  I  seem  to  take  sides  with  the 
secession  sympathizers  of  the  North." 

But  when  at  last  came  the  Amendment  forever 
abolishing  slavery,  and  that  Black  Idol  was  "  blown 
hellward  from  the  cannon's  mouth,  while  Freedom 
cheered  behind  the  smoke,"  Whittier  felt  that  all  had 
been  for  the  best, — 

"  We  prayed  for  love  to  loose  the  chain, 
'T  is  shorn  by  battle's  axe  in  twain." 

And  in  his  supreme  exultation  and  exaltation  of  mind 


134  JOHN    G.    WHITTIER. 

he  poured  forth,  as  if  by  a  sublime  improvisation, 
that  Miriam's  song  of  triumph,  "  Laus  Deo  !  "  in 
which  there  is  not  a  weak  line  from  beginning  to  end. 
The  poem  took  shape  in  Whittier's  mind  as  he  sat  in 
the  Friends'  meeting-house  in  Amesbury  and  heard 
the  clang  of  the  bells  rung  in  celebration  of  the 
event.  It  is  a  poem  that  ought  to  endure  as  long  as 
the  human  race  itself.  The  dungeon  of  Giant  De 
spair  was  at  last  forced  open,  and  the  grim  iron  key 
presented  to  the  man  who  best  deserved  it.1 

Before  passing  on  from  the  topic  of  the  Civil  War 
of  1861-65,  it  is  desirable  to  inquire  a  little  more 
closely  into  Whittier's  theory  and  practice  as  to  war, 
—its  right  or  wrong,  and  its  disciplinary  value,  espe 
cially  as  the  imagery  of  war  is  so  frequently  employed 
in  his  anti-slavery  poetry  and  elsewhere. 

General  J.  J.  Piatt,  in  a  lecture  delivered  in  Cork, 
Ireland,  some  years  since,  on  the  personality  and 
poetry  of  Whittier,  read  to  the  audience  a  note  he 
had  received  from  the  Quaker  bard,  as  follows: — 

"  MY  DEAR  FRIEND, — I  see  thee  are  selecting  Geo.  D.  Pren 
tice's  poems,  and  find  in  the  New  York  '  Evening  Post '  the 
following  extract  from  the  advance  sheets.  [The  newspaper 
slip  was  appended.]  The  term  war-poet — especially  that  of 
Quaker  war-poet — is  a  misnomer,  and,  in  my  case,  I  have  never 
written  a  poem  in  favor  or  in  praise  of  war.  If  possible,  strike 
out  the  phrase,  as  I  do  not  wish  to  be  represented  as  false  to 
my  life-long  principles." 

Mr.  Whittier's  statement  is  true  in  the  main,  but 


1  The  iron  key  of  the  Richmond  slave-pen  was  sent  to  Whittier 
when  the  city  was  occupied  by  Union  troops. 


THE    ANTI-SLAVERY    CONTEST.  13$ 

will  bear  some  discussion.  It  is  a  fact  that  he  has 
never  intentionally  written  in  praise  of  war,  and  his 
prose  and  his  poetry  are  full  of  passages  reprobating 
or  deploring  it.  In  a  note  to  his  poem  on  Kossuth 
the  soldier,  he  is  careful  to  state  that  he  believes  no 
political  revolution  was  ever  worth  the  price  of  human 
blood;  and,  in  a  remark  appended  to  his  poem  on  the 
storming  of  the  city  of  Derne,  he  affirms  his  belief  in 
a  higher  and  holier  heroism  than  that  of  war.  In 
"Massachusetts  to  Virginia,"  he  says,  "  We  wage  no 
war,  we  lift  no  arm,"  against  the  South  ;  in  "  Barclay 
of  Uri,"  he  lauds  the  non-resistant  Quaker  ;  in 
"  Stanzas,"  his  bugle-call  is  not  to  clash  of  arms,  but 
to  the  contest  of  Truth  and  Love  with  Error ;  he 
praises  peaceful  arbitrament  in  "  The  Peace  Con 
vention  at  Brussels ";  in  "Disarmament,"  the  senti 
ment  is  that  "hate  hath  no  harm  for  love,  and  peace 
unweaponed  conquers  every  wrong  "  ;  and  in  "  Brown 
of  Ossawatomie  "  essentially  the  same  idea  is  devel 
oped.  In  a  letter  to  Lydia  Maria  Child,  under  date 
of  Oct.  21,  1859,  he  writes  :— 

"  We  feel  deeply  (who  does  not  ?)  for  the  noble- 
hearted,  self-sacrificing  old  man  [John  Brown].  But 
as  friends  of  peace  as  well  as  freedom,  as  believers  in 
the  Sermon  on  the  Mount,  we  dare  not  lend  any 
countenance  to  such  attempts  as  that  at  Harper's 
Ferry.  ...  I  have  just  been  looking  at  one  of 
the  pikes  sent  here  by  a  friend  in  Baltimore.  It  is  not 
a  Christian  weapon  ;  it  looks  too  much  like  murder." 

Garrison  took  Whittier  to  task  for  the  lukewarm 
tone  of  his  "Brown  of  Ossawatomie."  He  thought 
he  did  not  so  much  honor  the  liberty-loving  heroism 
of  Brown  as  he  had  the  heroes  of  the  Revolution. 


136  JOHN    G.    WHITTIER. 

There  was  undeniable  truth  in  this  criticism,  and  the 
poet  makes  but  a  lame  defense  in  his  reply.1  But 
we  will  let  all  that  rest.  The  war,  right  or  wrong, 
has  come  and  gone,  and — 

"  Old  John  Brown's  body  is  a-mouldering  in  the  dust, 
Old  John  Brown's  rifle  's  red  with  blood-spots  turned  to  rust, 
Old  John  Brown's  pike  has  made  its  last,  unflinching  thrust, 
His  soul  is  marching  on  !  " 

Writing  on  another  occasion  to  Mrs.  Child,  Whit- 
tier  says  : — 

"I  know  nothing  nobler  or  grander  than  the  heroic 
self-sacrifice  of  young  Colonel  Shaw.  The  only  regi 
ment  I  ever  looked  upon  during  the  war  was  the  54th 
[colored]  on  its  departure  for  the  South.  I  shall 
never  forget  the  scene.  As  he  rode  at  the  head  of 
his  troops,  the  very  flower  of  grace  and  chivalry,  he 
seemed  to  me  beautiful  and  awful  as  an  angel  of  God 
come  down  to  lead  the  host  of  freedom  to  victory.  I 
have  longed  to  speak  the  emotions  of  that  hour,  but 
I  dared  not,  lest  I  should  indirectly  give  a  new  im 
pulse  to  war."  (A  contemporary  account  of  the 
embarkation  of  this  regiment  says  that  not  a  sneer  or 
an  unkind  word  marred  the  occasion.  Streets  and 
balconies  were  thronged  with  cheering  crowds,  flags 
were  hung  out,  and  a  lady  in  Essex  Street  presented 
Colonel  Shaw  with  a  handsome  bouquet.) 

But  there  is  another  side  to  the  shield.  If  Whittier 
has  written  no  poem  in  praise  of  war,  he  has  assuredly 
written  poems  full  of  the  warlike  spirit.  There  is  a 
touch  of  the  fighting  parson  or  Friar  Tuck  in  him. 


1  See  "  Liberator,"  Jan.  13  and  27,  1860. 


THE   ANTI-SLAVERY    CONTEST.  137 

The  elder  Hawthorne  wittily  spoke  of  him  as  "  a 
fiery  Quaker  youth  to  whom  the  Muse  has  perversely 
assigned  a  battle-trumpet."  His  favorite  metaphors 
are  those  of  battles  and  the  sword.  To  an  essay  on 
William  Leggett  he  prefixes  as  motto  some  strong  lines 
in  which  the  poet  Bryant  apostrophizes  Freedom,  not 
as  a  fair  girl  with  curls  flowing  from  under  her 
Phrygian  cap,  but  as  a  strong,  bearded  man,  "  armed 
to  the  teeth,"  one  hand  grasping  the  shield  and  the 
other  the  sword.  Mr.  Whittier  is  himself  perplexed 
over  the  outbursting  of  the  war-spirit  in  him  : — 

"Without  intending  any  disparagement  of  my 
peaceable  ancestry  for  many  generations,  I  have  still 
strong  suspicions  that  somewhat  of  the  old  Norman 
blood,  something  of  the  grim  Berserker  spirit,  has 
been  bequeathed  to  me.  How  else  can  I  account  for 
the  intense  childish  eagerness  with  which  I  listened 
to  the  stories  of  old  campaigners  who  sometimes 
fought  their  battles  over  again  in  my  hearing  ?  Why 
did  I,  in  my  young  fancy,  go  up  with  Jonathan,  the 
son  of  Saul,  to  smite  the  garrisoned  Philistines  of 
Michmash,  or  with  the  fierce  son  of  Nun  against  the 
cities  of  Canaan  ?  Why  was  Mr.  Greatheart,  in  Pil 
grim's  Progress,  my  favorite  character  ?  What  gave 
such  fascination  to  the  grand  Homeric  encounter 
between  Christian  and  Apollyon  in  the  valley  ?  Why 
did  I  follow  Ossian  over  Morven's  battlefields,  exult 
ing  in  the  vulture-screams  of  the  blind  scald  over  his 
fallen  enemies?  Still  later,  why  did  the  newspapers 
furnish  me  with  subjects  for  hero-worship  in  the  half- 
demented  Sir  Gregor  McGregor,  and  Ypsilanti  at  the 
head  of  his  knavish  Greeks  ?  I  can  only  account  for 
it  on  the  supposition  that  the  mischief  was  inherited, 


138  JOHN    G.    WHITTIER. 

— an  heirloom  from  the  old  sea-kings  of  the  ninth 
century. 

"  Education  and  reflection  have  indeed  wrought  a 
change  in  my  feelings.  The  trumpet  of  the  Cid,  or 
Ziska's  drum  even,  could  not  now  waken  that  old 
martial  spirit.  .  .  .  It  is  only  when  a  great  thought 
incarnates  itself  in  action,  desperately  striving  to  find 
utterance  even  in  the  sabre-clash  and  gun-fire,  or 
when  Truth  and  Freedom,  in  their  mistaken  zeal  and 
mistrustful  of  their  own  powers,  put  on  battle-har 
ness,  that  I  can  feel  any  sympathy  with  merely  phys 
ical  daring." 

Some  curious  facts  connected  with  the  American 
Civil  War  of  1861-65  show  that  the  old  war-instinct 
troubles  other  Quakers  besides  Whittier.  It  was  Mr. 
John  S.  Gibbons,  a  Hicksite  Quaker,  it  will  be  remem 
bered,  who  wrote  the  popular  war  lyric, — 

"  We  are  coming,  Father  Abraham, 
Three  hundred  thousand  more." 

During  the  early  days  of  the  war  the  good  Friends 
of  Philadelphia  were  greatly  scandalized  at  finding 
their  sons  rushing  to  arms  with  the  rest;  so  that,  we 
are  given  to  understand,  there  was  scarcely  a  Quaker 
household  from  which  one  or  more  sons  had  not  gone 
forth  to  the  cohflict.1  In  northern  New  Jersey  the 
famous  Quaker  Regiment,  of  a  full  thousand  men, 
was  formed  in  1862.  After  two  hundred  of  these 
men,  all  wearing  straight  coats  and  broad-brimmed 
hats,  had  offered  themselves  and  been  accepted,  their 
conduct  was  sharply  criticised  at  the  next  quarterly 


1  Life  of  Garrison,  iv.  37. 


THE   ANTI-SLAVERY    CONTEST.  139 

meeting,  whereupon  one  of  them,  who  was  present, 
arose  and  told  a  little  story.  He  said  that  his  grand 
father  once  had  dealings  with  an  obstreperous  "man 
of  the  world,"  who  provoked  him  until  his  patience 
was  worn  out.  All  at  once  he  threw  off  his  coat  and 
laid  it  on  the  ground,  saying,  "  Lie  there,  Quaker,  till 
I  give  this  rascal  his  dues  !  "  and  then  proceeded  to 
give  him  a  good  drubbing.  During  the  later  days  of 
the  war  the  Quakers  were  not  exempt  from  the  draft, 
and  some  of  them  strove  hard  to  avoid  it;  but  others 
were  willing  to  send  substitutes.  It  is  recorded  that 
a  Quaker  merchant  of  New  York  said  to  one  of  his 
clerks,  "  If  thee  will  enlist,  not  only  shall  thee  have 
thy  situation,  but  thy  salary  shall  go  on  while  thee  is 
absent.  But,  if  thee  will  not  serve  thy  country,  thee 
cannot  stay  in  this  store." 

It  is,  one  gladly  admits,  moral  heroism  alone  that 
Whittier  has  sometimes  seemed  to  praise,  in  spite  of 
himself,  when  he  finds  it  in  men  with  the  weapons  of 
death  in  their  hands.  Read  in  illustration  a  half- 
dozen  or  more  poems  produced  in  the  flower  of 
his  manhood  and  in  the  heat  of  the  anti-slavery 
struggle, — 1846  to  1858, — "  What  the  Voice  Said," 
"Paean,"  "  Yorktown,"  "Stanzas  for  the  Times," 
"The  Branded  Hand,"  "  Lucknow,"  and  "Derne"; 
also  some  rollicking  verses  "  written  to  beguile  a 
rainy  day  on  the  farm,"  about  sixty-three  years  ago. 
They  were  published  anonymously  in  some  paper, 
but  have  not  since  been  admitted  into  any  collection 
of  his  works.1  The  poem  is  called — 


1  The  time  of  the  poem  is  in  the  early  days  when  Vermont  was 
struggling  for  independent  existence,  under  the  lead  of  Ethan  Allen 


14°  JOHN    G.    WHITTIER. 

THE  SONG  OF  THE  VERMONTERS. 

Ho  !  all  to  the  borders  !  Vermonters,  come  down, 
With  your  breeches  of  deerskin  and  jackets  of  brown ; 
With  your  red  woolen  caps,  and  your  moccasins,  come 
To  the  gathering  summons  of  trumpet  and  drum ! 

Come  down  with  your  rifles  !  let  gray  wolf  and  fox 
Howl  on  in  the  shade  of  their  primitive  rocks ; 
Let  the  bear  feed  securely  from  pig-pen  and  stall ; 
Here  's  a  two-legged  game  for  your  powder  and  ball! 

On  our  south  come  the  Dutchmen,  enveloped  in  grease, 
And  arming  for  battle,  while  canting  of  peace ; 
On  our  east,  crafty  Meshech  has  gathered  his  band, 
To  hang  up  our  leaders  and  eat  out  our  land. 

Ho  !  all  to  the  rescue  !     For  Satan  shall  work 
No  gain  for  his  legions  of  Hampshire  and  York! 
They  claim  our  possessions, — the  pitiful  knaves  ! — 
The  tribute  we  pay  shall  be  prisons  and  graves  ! 


and  other  Green  Mountain  Boys.  The  poem  is  given  in  Henry  W. 
De  Puy's  "  Ethan  Allen,"  Buffalo,  1853,  and  in  "  Littell's  Living 
Age,"  March  22,  1856.  Under  date  of  March  19,  1887,  Whittier 
wrote  to  the  Boston  ' '  Transcript "  a  letter,  in  which  he  said :  "  '  The 
Song  of  the  Vermonters,  by  Ethan  Allen,'  was  a  piece  of  boyish 
mystification,  written  sixty  years  ago  and  printed  anonymously. 
The  only  person  who  knew  its  authorship  was  my  old  friend 
Joseph  T.  'Buckingham,  and  I  supposed  the  secret  died  with  him. 
We  were  both  amused  to  find  it  regarded  by  antiquarian  authorities 
as  a  genuine  relic  of  the  old  time.  How  the  secret  was  dis 
covered  a  few  years  ago  I  have  never  known.  I  have  never  in 
tentionally  written  anything  in  favor  of  war,  but  a  great  deal 
against  it." 


THE    ANTI-SLAVERY    CONTEST.  14! 

Let  Clinton  and  Ten  Broek,  with  bribes  in  their  hands, 
Still  seek  to  divide  us  and  parcel  our  lands: 
We  Ve  coats  for  our  traitors,  whoever  they  are ; 
The  warp  is  of  feathers,  the  filling  of  tar  ! 

Does  the  "  Old  Bay  State  "  threaten  ?     Does  Congress  com 
plain  ? 

Swarms  Hampshire  in  arms  on  our  borders  again  ? 
Bark  the  war-dogs  of  Britain  aloud  on  the  lake  ? 
Let  'em  come !  what  they  can,  they  are  welcome  to  take. 

What  seek  they  among  us  ?     The  pride  of  our  wealth 
Is  comfort,  contentment,  and  labor  and  health  ; 
And  lands  which  as  Freemen  we  only  have  trod, 
Independent  of  all  save  the  mercies  of  God. 

Yet  we  owe  no  allegiance  ;  we  bow  to  no  throne  ; 
Our  ruler  is  law,  and  the  law  is  our  own  ; 
Our  leaders  themselves  are  our  own  fellow-men, 
Who  can  handle  the  sword  or  the  scythe  or  the  pen. 

Our  wives  are  all  true,  and  our  daughters  are  fair, 
With  their  blue  eyes  of  smiles  and  their  light  flowing  hair ; 
All  brisk  at  their  wheels  till  the  dark  even-fall, 
Then  blithe  at  the  sleigh-ride,  the  husking,  and  ball ! 

We  Ve  sheep  on  the  hillsides ;  we  Ve  cows  on  the  plain ; 
And  gay-tasselled  corn-fields,  and  rank-growing  grain ; 
There  are  deer  on  the  mountains  ;  and  wood-pigeons  fly 
From  the  crack  of  our  muskets,  like  clouds  in  the  sky. 

And  there  's  fish  in  our  streamlets  and  rivers,  which  take 
Their  course  from  the  hills  to  our  broad-bosomed  lake ; 
Through  rock-arched  Winooski  the  salmon  leaps  free, 
And  the  portly  shad  follows,  all  fresh  from  fhe  sea. 


I42  JOHN    G.    WHITTIER. 

Like  a  sunbeam  the  pickerel  glides  through  his  pool, 
And  the  spotted  trout  sleeps  where  the  water  is  cool, 
Or  darts  from  his  shelter  of  rock  and  of  root 
At  the  beaver's  quick  plunge  or  the  angler's  pursuit. 

And  ours  are  the  mountains  which  awfully  rise 

Till  they  rest  their  green  heads  on  the  blue  of  the  skies; 

And  ours  are  the  forests,  unwasied,  unshorn, 

Save  where  the  wild  path  of  the  tempest  is  torn. 

And  though  savage  and  wild  be  this  climate  of  ours, 
And  brief  be  our  season  of  fruits  and  of  flowers, 
Far  dearer  the  blast  round  our  mountains  which  raves 
Than  the  sweet  summer  zephyr  which  breathes  over  slaves. 

Hurrah  for  VERMONT  !  for  the  land  which  we  till 
Must  have  sons  to  defend  her  from  valley  and  hill ; 
Leave  the  harvest  to  rot  on  the  field  where  it  grows, 
And  the  reaping  of  wheat  for  the  reaping  of  foes. 

Far  from  Michiscom's  valley  to  where 
Poosoomsuck  steals  down  from  his  wood-circled  lair, 
From  Shocticook  river  to  Lutterlock  town, — 
Ho  !  all  to  the  rescue  !  Vermonters,  come  down  ! 

Come  York  or  come  Hampshire, — come  traitors  and  knaves ; 
If  ye  rule  o'er  our  land,  ye  shall  rule  o'er  our  graves  ; 
Our  vow  is  recorded, — our  banner  unfurled  ; 
In  the  name  of  Vermont,  we  defy  all  the  world! 

There  is  an  interesting  parallelism  between  Ruskin 
and  Whittier  in  their  latent  sympathy  with  war  and 
yet  their  open  reprobation  of  it.  The  truth  is,  we 
are  in  a  transition  state  from  the  era  of  battle  to  the 
era  of  peace.  And  while  to  the  old  soldier-nations 
the  fatal  ordeal  of  the  sword — man  to  man  and  shield 
to  shield — seemed  the  sole  condition  of  high  mental 


THE    ANTI-SLAVERY    CONTEST.  143 

attainments,  to  us  a  more  excellent  way  presents  it 
self  ;  namely,  battle  with  the  hostile  forces  of  nature, 
and  moral  struggle  and  emulation.  But  at  present 
we  must  charitably  allow  our  poets  of  peace  the 
mere  imagery  of  the  old  ages  of  strife  ;  for  poetic 
material  is  not  easy  to  obtain  unless  the  whole  range 
of  life  is  open  to  the  poet's  use. 

The  moral  quality  of  the  Quaker  poet  which  leads 
him  to  abhor  war  reveals  itself  in  a  milder  form  in 
his  dislike  of  the  strife  and  noise  of  the  professional 
politician's  life.  Although  taking  a  deep  interest  in 
elections  and  in  all  questions  concerning  the  nation's 
welfare,  he  says  that,  as  a  rule,  he  has  declined  over 
tures  for  acceptance  of  public  station;  and  adds,  "I 
have  not  been  willing  to  add  my  own  example  to  the 
greed  of  office."  In  1842  he  was  nominated  as  a 
Liberty  party  candidate  for  Congress  from  Massa 
chusetts,  as  we  shall  see.  The  only  offices  he  has 
actually  held,  however,  have  been  unsought  by  him. 
lie  was  twice  elected  to  the  Massachusetts  legisla 
ture,  and  served  twice  as  member  of  the  government 
Electoral  College.  He  has  also  been  on  the  Board  of 
Overseers  of  Harvard  and  Brown  Universities.  In 
1845  ne  was  a  Vice-President  of  the  Massachusetts 
Society  for  the  Abolition  of  Capital  Punishment. 
He  made  a  few  anti-slavery  speeches,1  but  was  more 
successful  as  a  lobbyist  ("  a  superb  hand  at  it,"  said 

1  A  reviewer  of  Whittier  in  1849  ("  Littell's  Living  Age,"  January 
13)  says,  "  We  have  small  sympathy  with  him  as  a  lecturer,"  and 
gives  as  his  reasons  that  he  does  n't  like  the  "  fierce  anathemas  and 
savage  denunciations  "  of  the  Puritans  !  Rather  amusing  that  ! — 
"  the  savage  Whittier"  is  much  like  "  the  ferocious  turtle  dove." 
The  reviewer  continues,  "As  is  generally  the  case  with  ultra- 
liberals,  Mr.  Whittier  exhibits  a  most  vindictive  intolerance." 


144  JOHN    G.    WHITTIER. 

Wendell  Phillips)  and  as  an  organizer  of  voters.  His 
keen  insight  into  men's  characters,  taken  in  connec 
tion  with  his  winning  address,  was  what  made  his 
election  services  so  highly  prized  by  party  managers. 
He  must  have  startled  and  almost  terrified  the  quiet- 
loving_J^gngfellow  by  proposing  to  him  that  he 
should  accept  a  nomination  to  Congress  on  the  Lib 
erty  party  ticket  in  1844.  Longfellow  had  just  pub 
lished  his  Poems  on  Slavery,  which  had  pleased 
Whittier,  and  he  wrote  to  thank  him  for  them,  say 
ing  they  had  been  of  important  service  to  the  party. 
"  Our  friends,"  said  he,  "  think  they  could  throw  for 
thee  one  thousand  more  votes  than  for  any  other 
man."  Longfellow  answered,  "  At  all  times  I  shall 
rejoice  in  the  progress  of  true  liberty,  and  in  freedom 
from  slavery  of  all  kinds;  but  I  cannot  for  a  moment 
think  of  entering  the  political  arena.  Partisan  war 
fare  becomes  too  violent,  too  vindictive,  for  my  taste; 
and  I  should  be  found  but  a  weak  and  unworthy 
champion  in  public  debate."1 

In  1^34  Whittier  was  Corresponding  Secretary  of 
the  Haverhill  Anti-slavery  Society;  and  his  Reports 
as  Corresponding  Secretary  of  the  Essex  County 
Anti-slavery  Society  in  1837  are  extant.3  In  April, 
'37,  he  spoke  at  a  meeting  of  the  Massachusetts  Society 
in  Lynn,  and  at  the  anniversary  meeting  of  the  Amer 
ican  Anti-slavery  Society,  in  that  year,  he  introduced 
a  resolution  advocating  no  political  support  to  any 
party  candidate  who  was  unwilling  to  work  for  the 
abolition  of  slavery.  In  February  of  this  busy  year, 


1  Life  of  Longfellow,  by  Samuel  Longfellow,  ii.  20. 
9  In  "  Liberator,"  Jan.  14,  '37,  and  May  5,  '37. 


THE    ANTI-SLAVERY    CONTEST.  145 

'37,  he  is  at  Harrisburg,  Pennsylvania,  attending  a 
~c~oTrvention  of  the  Pennsylvania  Society,  and  writes 
glowing  letters  to  the  papers,  saying  that  Thomas 
Whitson  was  there,  "  firm  as  rock  and  true  as  steel "; 
Charles  GJBurleigh,  with  his  eloquence  and  his  plain 
homespun  appearance,  was  "  moving  all  before  him"; 
and  "sturdy  farmer  Ritner,"  the  Governor,  had  flung 
out  on  the  mountain  breezes  of  Pennsylvania  the 
banner  of  free  discussion.  We  are  told  that  one  of 
the  delegates  (honor  be  to  his  name  !)  had  the  good 
sense  to  hold  that  the  negroes  had  a  right  to  fight 
for  their  freedom,  and  he  indignantly  withdrew  from 
the  convention  when  the  doctrinaires  refused  to 
agree  with  him,  saying  it  was  nothing  but  a  Quaker 
meeting.  Ia^8j^,  at  the  anniversary  of  the  Ameri 
can  Society,  we  finjjLW-hittier  introducing  a  resolution 
(successfully  passed)  favoring  the  ballot  as  a  weapon 
in  the  hands  of  Abolitionists.  At  a  business  meeting 
of  the  society  in  January,  1840,  he  was  present  and 
took  part  in  the  proceedings;  and  in  July  of  the  same 
year  he  serves  on  a  business  committee  at  the  Albany 
Convention. 

He  was  an  ardent  supporter  ofjCaLeb pushing  in 
his  thirteen  attempts  to  secure  election  to  Congress. 
(Gushing  was  finally  successful.)  In  1828,  when  a 
mere  boy,  Whittier,  as  editor  of  the  "  American  Man 
ufacturer,"  supported  Henry  Clay,  in  a  sort  of  per 
functory  way;  but,  when  afterwards  his  eyes  were 
opened  more  fully  to  the  wrongs  of  slavery,  he 
declined  to  give  him  his  support,  because  he  was  a 
slaveholder, — and  told  him  so  frankly  in  a  cordial 
interview  he  had  with  him  once  in  Washington.1 

1  Life  of  Garrison,  i.  190. 
IO 


146  JOHN    G.    WHITTIER. 

Mr.  Whittier  helped  to  organize  the  Liberty  party, 
which  was  the  precursor  of  the  Free-Soil  party  (in 
the  essential  matter);  and  that  in  turn  was  merged 
in  the  present  Republican  party.  The  real  founder 
of  the  Liberty  party  was  Myron  Holley  of  New  York 
State.  The  party  came  into  existence  in  entire  inde 
pendence  of  the  New  Organization  faction  of  the 
Abolitionists,  but  that  faction  at  once  fraternized 
with  it  on  political  grounds.  In  the  ethical  field 
the  founding  of  the  American  and  Foreign  Anti- 
slavery  Society,  and  its  organ,  the  "  American  and 
Foreign  Anti-slavery  Reporter,"  by  the  New  Organi- 
zationists,  was  one  of  the  minor  results  of  division  in 
the  Abolition  ranks,  primarily  on  the  question  of 
woman's  rights,  and  secondarily  on  the  subjects  of 
political  action,  non-resistance,  and  moral  perfection 
ism.  Garrison  and  his  party  thought  the  Constitution 
of  the  United  States  to  be  a  covenant  with  death  and 
an  agreement  with  hell,  and  could  not  conscientiously 
vote  under  it  or  recognize  its  authority.  But  such 
Abolitionists  as  Whittier,  Samuel  E.  Sewall,  James 
G.  Birney,  Gerrit  Smith,  the  Tappans,  Joshua  Leavitt, 
Elizur  Wright,  Henry  B.  Stanton,  Amos  A.  Phelps, 
and  Rev.  John  Pierpont  were  willing  to  work  under 
the  Constitution,  and  vote  under  it;  and  they  there 
fore  joined  themselves  to  the  Liberty  party,  and 
founded  their  own  journals,  —  among  them  the 
"Reporter,"  above  mentioned.  This  short-lived 
monthly,  founded  by  Lewis  Tappan,  published  in 
New  York,  and  edited  by  Whittier,  had  no  great 
strength  or  following.  Whittier  was  also  placed  on 
the  executive  committee  of  the  rew  society,  but 
excused  himself  on  account  of  his  health.  The 


THE    ANTI-SLAVERY    CONTEST.  147 

Garrisonians,  and  notably  the  keen-witted  Edmund 
Ouincy,  fought  the  come-outers  with  tooth  and  nail  ; 
and  the  list  of  names  above  given  shows  that  well  was 
their  need,  if  they  would  keep  alive  after  so  alarm 
ing  a  defection.  As  for  the  American  and  Foreign 
Society,  if  it  had  done  nothing  else,  we  should  owe 
it  a  debt  of  gratitude  for  the  founding  and  nursing 
into  self-support  of  the  "  National  Era,"  which  fur 
nished  a  medium  for  the  publication  of  a  Large  part  of 
Whittier's  best  poems  (ninety-five  of  them)  and — 
most  important  of  all — Mrs.  Stowe's  "Uncle  Tom's 
Cabin." 

The  split  in  the  Abolition  ranks,  which  is  of  very 
little  interest  to  most  of  us  now,  occupies  a  conspic 
uous  place  in  the  history  of  Abolitionism,  and  created 
a  good  deal  of  hard  feeling  and  not  a  little  bitter 
speaking  between  members  of  the  different  factions. 
Whittier  was  often  spoken  of  as  a  good  editor  for 
projected  organs  of  the  new  party,  and  did  actually 
do  editorial  work  both  on  the  "Emancipator"  of 
Joshua  Leavittand  the  "  American  and  Foreign  Anti- 
slavery  Reporter,"  as  has  been  stated.  Garrison  was 
extremely  jealous  of  the  new  journals,  and  pretty 
severe  in  his  language  about  them.  He  said  he  was 
certain  that  "  the  grand  design  was  to  supplant  the 
1  Liberator,'  and  establish  a  paper  upon  its  ruins 
that  would  be  less  offensive  to  the  clergy,  and  less 
free  in  its  spirit,  and  that  would  not  dare  to  utter  a 
word  upon  any  other  question  of  reform — unless  it 
were  popular  !  "  This  was  a  most  unfair  statement, 
but  Garrison  firmly  believed  it.  The  relation  of 
friendship  between  him  and  Whittier  was  strained, 
but  never  entirely  broken  by  these  differences  of 


148  JOHN    G.    WHITTIER. 

opinion.  It  was  hard  to  quarrel  with  so  gentle  and 
amiable  a  man  as  the  Quaker  poet. 

Still,  between  the  years  1839  an<^  i86i,the  columns 
of  the  "  Liberator  "  contain  from  time  to  time  little 
flings  at  Whittierasone  of  the  leaders  of  the  political 
Abolition  party. 

At  the  beginning  of  the  difficulty,  Whittier,  as  edi 
tor  of  the  "  Freeman,"  wrote  in  February,  1839,  a  piece 
in  which,  as  always,  he  poured  oil  upon  the  troubled 
waters.  He  said,  in  substance:  Let  us  tolerate  and 
forgive  one  another  everything  but  wilful  and  delib 
erate  treachery  to  the  cause.  Our  merely  personal 
differences  must  be  buried  "deeper  than  plummet 
ever  sounded."  "Are  we  not  all  brethren,  Abolition 
ists  all  ?  .  .  .  Like  the  fabled  stone  of  Scio,  which 
Pliny  speaks  of,  that  floated  on  the  waves  when  whole, 
but  sunk  like  lead  beneath  them  when  broken  asun 
der,  our  strength  and  safety  lie  in  our  union  and 
brotherhood  of  spirit."  1 

In  his  comment  on  this  Mr.  Garrison  characteristi 
cally  said:  "  All  this  is  certainly  in  a  very  amicable 
spirit.  Its  object  is  pacification,  but  somewhat  in 
the  Henry  Clay  style,  when  Missouri  was  admitted 
into  the  Union  as  a  slave  State,  for  the  sake  of  peace." 

Whittier  wrote  in  reply  in  the  next  number  of  the 
"  Liberator  "  but  one: — 

AMESBURY,  24th,  2d  mo.,  1839. 

MY  DEAR  GARRISON, — As  sickness,  in  thy  opinion,  does  not 
always  "  subdue  the  temper  and  chasten  the  spirit,"  was  it  not 
somewhat  hazardous,  on  thy  part,  to  make  an  experiment  upon 
my  complacency  and  good  nature  while  suffering  from  pro- 


1  Liberator,  Feb.  22,  1839. 


THE    ANTI-SLAVERY    CONTEST.  149 

tracted  indisposition  ?  There  are  times  when  "  the  grasshop 
per  is  a  burden  ";  and  therefore  it  ought  not  to  surprise  thee, 
that,  without  fully  indorsing  the  erudite  Dogberry's  theory  in 
relation  to  comparisons,  I  should  take  exceptions  to  one  in  thy 
last  paper,  likening  my  efforts  for  the  "  pacification  "  of  con 
flicting  "  Boston  notions  "  to  those  of  Henry  Clay  on  the  Mis 
souri  question  ;  and  that  the  idea  of  being  held  up  alongside  of 
the  "  Great  Pacificator,"  right  on  the  heel  of  his  late  "  surren 
der  "  to  John  C.  Calhoun,  is  peculiarly  unsavory.  It  may  have 
been  nothing  more  than  a  figure  of  speech,  or  a  flourish  of  rhet 
oric  ;  but  if  it  was  intended  to  impeach  me  with  having,  for  the 
sake  of  peace,  or  for  any  other  reason,  yielded  up  one  of  those 
great  and  glorious  truths  for  which  for  the  last  six  years  we 
have  contended  side  by  side,  it  was  unworthy  of  William  Lloyd 
Garrison — far  more  injurious  to  himself  than  to  his  friend  ;  and 
in  the  free  spirit  of  an  Abolitionist,  I  tread  it  as  the  dust  under 
my  feet  and  leave  it. 

It  may  be,  however,  that,  in  this  matter,  my  heart  will  be 
excused  at  the  expense  of  my  judgment.  My  views  of  the 
existing  difficulty  may  be  attributed  to  a  defect  of  moral 
vision.  Well,  be  it  so.  I  confess  that  the  habit  of  my  mind  is 
somewhat  confiding  and  unsuspicious.  No  visions  of  future 
treachery  haunt  and  disturb  me  in  my  communion  with  my 
anti-slavery  brethren :  no  shadows  and  omens  of  thick-coming 
disasters  throng  before  me  :  no  ghosts  of  treason,  wearing  the 
similitude  of  loved  and  familiar  friends,  scowl  on  me  from  the 
Shadow  World  of  the  Future.  My  sphere  of  vision  is  mainly 
limited  to  the  Actual  and  the  Present.  For  me,  "  sufficient 
unto  the  day  is  the  evil  thereof."  Yet,  when  real  difficulties 
come, — when  the  ploughshares  of  a  fiery  ordeal  lie  hot  and 
glowing  in  the  very  path  of  duty, — I  trust  I  shall  not  evince 
more  hesitancy  and  faltering  than  those  of  my  brethren  who, 
more  clear-sighted  than  myself,  have  seen  the  danger  afar 
off.  ... 

But  enough — I  have  written  far  more  than  I  intended  when 
I  commenced  this  note.  Make  such  comments  upon  it  as  thou 
mayst  deem  proper,  or  none  at  all.  One  thing  I  would  state  in 


I5O  JOHN    G.    WHITTIER. 

advance.  However  I  may  differ  from  him,  I  shall  not  quarrel 
with  the  friend  of  twelve  years'  standing,  whom  I  have  known 
and  loved  in  prosperity  and  adversity — who  first  stimulated  me 
to  active  exertion  in  the  cause  of  the  slave.  .  .  . 

Truly  thy  friend, 

JOHN  G.  WHITTIER. 

To  this  genial  avowal  the  fiery  Garrison,  who  was 
in  a  state  of  great  irritation,  appended  a  half-column 
of  ungracious  accusations  against  the  seceded  party, 
headed  by  the  following  remark  to  Whittier,  in  which 
he  rubs  the  sore  when  he  should  apply  the  plaster: 
"  We  sympathize  with  our  dear  friend  in  his  illness. 
In  our  allusion  to  Henry  Clay's  manner  of  '  pacifica 
tion,'  we  only  meant  that  J.  G.  W.  is  for  obtaining 
peace  at  the  expense  of  consistency,  if  not  of  princi- 
pie." 

Matters  were  evidently  grown  to  be  a  little  serious 
between  the  two  friends,  and  it  is  easy  to  see  on  which 
side  intolerance  existed.  One  could  imagine  Whittier 
as  saying  with  Landor,  "  I  do  not  like  your  great  men 
who  beckon  me  to  them,  call  me  their  begotten,  their 
dear  child,  and  their  entrails;  and  if  I  happen  to  say 
on  any  occasion,  *  I  beg  leave,  sir,  to  dissent  a  little 
from  you,'  stamp  and  cry,  'The  devil  you  do  !  '  and 
whistle  for  the  executioner."  Whittier  had  sailed 
quite  into  the  north  of  Garrison's  good  opinion,  and 
that  reformer  took  no  pains  to  conceal  the  fact  or  to 
breathe  the  faults  of  his  friend  quaintly,  but  keeps 
twitting  him  and  pricking  him.  Recalls  members  of 
the  new  party  "  the  sightless  and  priestless  dupes  of 
a  bigoted  clergy."1  When  Whittier  was  annoyed  at 


1  Liberator,  xiii.  51. 


THE    ANTI-SLAVERY    CONTEST.  15! 

the  circulation  in  the  presidential  campaign  of  1842 
(as  if  they  were  then  first  written)  of  some  highly 
encomiastic  lines  on  Henry  Clay  penned  by  him  in 
1829  or  1830,  Garrison  slyly  asks  why  Whittier  or 
any  of  his  friends  should  marvel  at  this,  since  "  all 's 
fair  in  politics."  In  1859,  when  the  hanging  of  John 
Brown  occurs,  Garrison  keenly  remarks  that  Whittier 
can't  complain  of  Brown,  since  he  himself  votes  under 
a  constitution  which  upholds  war.  In  1841  there 
appears  on  the  first  page  of  the  "  Liberator"  a  para 
graph  from  the  "Pennsylvania  Freeman"  which 
Whittier  had  recently  edited.  The  writer  of  the  par 
agraph  expresses  regret  that  "  the  soul  of  John  G. 
Whittier  should  choose  to  be  cramped  within  such 
narrow  limits"  as  the  editorship  of  the  "American 
and  Foreign  Anti-slavery  Reporter"  imposes.  Then 
comes  a  veiled  sneer  about  the  feeble  health  of  Whit 
tier  being  just  suited  to  a  task  of  such  slight  magni 
tude.  Again,  the  "Liberator"  itself  says  editorially: 
"  Where  is  John  G.  Whittier?  At  home,  we  believe, 
but  incapable  of  doing  anything  important  for  the 
cause  —  except  to  write  political  electioneering  ad 
dresses  for  the  '  Liberty  party  '  !  New  Organization 
has  affected  his  spirit  to  a  withering  extent,  and  poli 
tics  will  complete  his  ruin,  if  he  *  tarry  long  in  all  the 
field.'  "  '  In  the  "  Liberator  "  for  Nov.  n,  1842,  Gar 
rison  holds  Whittier  up  to  ridicule.  "  The  most  ludi 
crous  feelings  are  excited  within  us,"  he  says,  "on 
looking  over  the  Liberty  party's  list  of  Congressional 
nominations."  After  speaking  of  three  of  the  nomi 
nees  as  "  Methodist  priests,"  wholly  untrustworthy 


1  Liberator,  Aug.  12,  1842. 


I$2  JOHN    G.    WHITTIER. 

for  the  work  of  Abolitionism,  he  continues:  "  In  Dis 
trict  No.  3,  John  G.  Whittier  is  the  Liberty  party 
candidate.  Like  the  other  two,  if  elected,  he  would 
be  speechless  on  the  floor  of  Congress, — not,  like 
them,  for  the  want  of  intellectual  ability,  but  because 
public  speaking  is  not  his  gift.  Whittier,  it  is  well 
known,  is  a  member  of  the  Society  of  Friends.  He 
is  professedly  opposed  to  war,  defensive  as  well  as 
offensive,  and  to  capital  punishment.  As  a  member 
of  Congress,  he  would  be  compelled  to  promise,  under 
the  pains  and  penalties  of  perjury,  to  support  the 
U.  S.  Constitution  AS  IT  is.  By  that  Constitution, 
the  life  of  man  may  be  taken,  and  war  declared  and 
prosecuted — the  army  and  navy  must  be  maintained 
—piracy  is  made  lawful,  in  the  granting  of  letters  of 
marque  and  reprisal — and  the  judiciary,  which  sen 
tences  human  beings  to  be  hanged  by  the  neck  till 
they  are  dead,  is  regarded  as  the  sheet-anchor  of 
4  law  and  order,' — to  say  nothing  about  the  clauses 
allowing  slaveholders  to  represent  their  slaves,  and  to 
recover  fugitives  in  any  part  of  the  Union.  How  can 
Whittier  promise  to  support  such  a  bloody  instru 
ment,  either  as  a  philanthropist  or  a  Christian  ? " 

Now, Whittier  was  of  course  sensitive  to  censure,  and 
quick  as  lightning  to  perceive  coldness  or  hostility 
in  a  friend.  He  showed  the  old  party  the  back 
seams  of  his  stockings  in  an  unmistakable  way,  when 
he  found  out  their  animus.  From  about  1840  to 
1854  no  direct  communications  whatever  from  Whit 
tier  appear  in  the  "  Liberator,"  though  his  poems 
continue  to  be  regularly  quoted  from  other  journals. 
Still,  the  trouble  between  Garrison  and  his  friend 
was  not  unsolderable,  but  was  only  of  the  nature  of 


THE    ANTI-SLAVERY    CONTEST.  153 

a  marked  coolness  (for  a  number  of  years).  A  little 
incident  is  in  point  here.  In  the  latter  part  of  1841 
Whittier  happened  one  day  to  be  in  Garrison's  office 
in  Boston,  after  the  headquarters  of  the  old  American 
Anti-slavery  Society  had  been  removed  to  that  city. 
"  Why  can't  we  all  go  on  together?"  said  Whittier. 
"Why  not  indeed?"  said  Garrison:  "  we  stand  just 
where  we  did.  I  see  no  reason  why  you  cannot 
cooperate  with  the  American  Society."  "  Oh,"  replied 
Whittier,  "  hut  the  American  Society  is  not  what  it 
once  was:  it  has  the  hat  and  the  coat  and  the  waistcoat 
of  the  old  Society,  but  the  life  has  passed  out  of  it." 
"Are  you  not  ashamed,"  laughingly  replied  Mr.  Gar 
rison,  "  to  come  here  wondering  why  we  cannot  go 
on  together  !  No  wonder  you  can't  cooperate  with  a 
suit  of  old  clothes."  1 

At  heart,  however,  Whittier  often  suffered  poign 
antly  over  the  disagreements  of  the  two  parties.  In 
1840  he  wrote  to  Joshua  Leavitt: 

"  MY  DEAR  BROTHER  LEAVITT, — I  have  just  returned  to 
the  quiet  of  my  home,  and  have  barely  had  leisure  to  glance 
over  the  anti-slavery  newspapers  which  have  accumulated  dur 
ing  my  absence. 

"  Last  year  I  attended  the  Annual  Meeting  of  the  American 
Anti-slavery  Society  in  New  York.  It  was  to  me  a  painful 
season.  The  distrust  and  jealousy  which  were  manifested,  and 
the  impeachment  of  motives  which  was  indulged  in,  were  to 
me  a  source  of  regret,  mortification,  and  sorrow  unfeigned. 
And  when,  previous  to  the  late  Anniversary,  I  saw  the  parties 
mustering  for  strife, — signals  and  watchwords  passing  and 
repassing  over  the  land, — and  every  indication  of  a  desperate 
struggle  for  the  mastery  of  numbers,  I  could  not  find  in  my 


Life  of  Garrison,  iii. 


154  JOHN    G.    WHITTIER. 

own  mind  any  freedom  to  attend  the  meeting.  Even  had  I 
resolved  otherwise,  the  state  of  my  health  must  have  prevented 
me  from  any  active  participation  in  the  business  proceedings, 
and  I  felt  no  disposition  to  be  a  spectator  of  dissension  and 
strife  among  friends. 

"  Of  the  result  of  that  meeting  I  need  not  speak.  The  anti- 
slavery  host  has  been  severed  in  twain.  The  thing  which  I 
have  greatly  feared  has  come  upon  us.  The  original  cause  of 
the  difficulty — a  disposition  to  engraft  foreign  questions  upon 
the  simple  stock  of  immediate  emancipation — I  early  discovered, 
and  labored  to  the  extent  of  my  ability  to  counteract.  That  in 
so  doing  I  have  been  compelled  to  dissent  from  the  views  of 
some  of  my  dearest  personal  friends  has  been  no  ordinary  trial 
to  me." 

Whittier  then  begs  leave,  on  account  of  his  health, 
to  be  excused  from  serving  on  the  Executive  Com 
mittee  of  the  American  and  Foreign  Anti-slavery 
Society,  and  closes  with  a  pious  exhortation  and  ex 
pression  of  faith  in  the  cause. 1 

A  few  months  later  than  the  time  of  the  above 
letter,  Whittier  had  a  brilliant  word-duel  with  N.  P. 
Rogers,  whose  second  was  Garrison.  As  the  give 
and  take  game  went  on,  it  was  merged  into  a  dis 
cussion  of  the  right  or  wrong  of  the  New  Organiza 
tion  for  political  action,  and  the  motives  of  the  differ 
ent  parties,  and  will  therefore  give  us  an  oppor 
tunity  to  investigate  the  case  a  little  ourselves,  and 
see  if  we  can,  at  this  distance  of  time,  reach  the  truth 
about  it. 

The  immediate  occasion  of  the  clash  was  a  letter  of 
Whittier's  written  to  the  "Pennsylvania  Freeman," 


Emancipator,  July  2,  1840. 


THE    ANTI-SLAVERY    CONTEST.  155 

under  date  of  Sept.  24,  1840,  l  criticising  N.  P. 
Rogers  for  certain  published  statements  about  the 
London  Convention  of  Abolitionists,  to  which  he  was 
a  delegate.  But  it  is  necessary  to  go  back  a  little 
further,  in  order  to  see  the  matter  in  all  its  bearings. 
About  half  a  year  previously,  Whittier  had  written 
a  poem  on  the  proposed  Convention,  couched  in 
beautiful  terms  and  breathing  a  spirit  of  charity  and 
peace, — 

"  Yes,  let  them  gather  !     Summon  forth 
The  pledged  philanthropy  of  earth. 

***** 
Let  them  come  and  greet  each  other, 
And  know  in  each  a  friend  and  brother." 

Alluding  to  this  poem,  Garrison,  with  characteristic 
hard  obstinacy  and  intolerance,  said,  "  Amen,  yes,  let 
them  all  come, —  ...  all  but  those  who  refuse 
to  associate  for  the  slave's  redemption  with  others 
who  do  not  agree  with  them  as  to  the  divinity  of 
human  politics,  and  the  Scriptural  obligation  to  pre 
vent  woman  from  opening  her  mouth  in  an  anti- 
slavery  gathering  for  '  the  suffering  and  the  dumb,' — 
and  they  cannot  come,  conscientiously — they  are  par 
excellence  New  Organizationists  !  " 

This  was  slamming  the  door  in  Whittier's  face  with 
a  vengeance  !  Yet  the  difficulty  suggested  so  deli 
cately  by  Garrison  did  not  seem  to  be  insuperable 
to  the  New  Organizationists,  for  they  sent  two  of 
their  number — James  G.  Birney  (at  that  time  a  can- 


1  Quoted  in  "  Liberator  "  Nov.  27,  1840.     None  of  the  letters  of 
Whittier  written  at  this  time  have  been  reprinted. 


156  JOHN    G.    WHITTIER. 

didate  for  the  Presidency)  and  Henry  B.  Stanton — to 
the  Convention,  and  no  doubt  invited  Whittier,  but 
he  was  very  ill  at  home  and  could  not  go,  and  was 
besides,  as  we  have  seen,  in  a  state  of  disgust  over 
the  everlasting  wrangle  and  jaw  of  the  Garrisonians 
and  their  opponents. 

Well,  off  to  London,  in  high  feather,  had  gone 
Garrison  and  Rogers,  Lucretia  Mott  and  Wendell 
Phillips,  Birney  and  Stanton.  They  were  having  a 
grand  time  there,  and  sending  home  letters  about 
it  all. 

When  the  British  delegates  refused  to  admit 
women  to  the  Convention,  Garrison  declined  to  take 
his  seat  with  them,  and  remained  a  spectator  of  the 
proceedings.  Now,  as  the  ostensible  ground  for 
the  split  in  the  Abolition  host  had  been  difference  of 
opinion  on  the  desirability  of  women  taking  part  in 
conventions  and  meetings,  of  course  Whittier,  in  his 
letter  to  the  "  Freeman,"  above  mentioned,  takes  the 
position  that  the  action  of  the  British  in  rejecting  the 
women  delegates  affords  no  ground  for  sweeping 
condemnation  of  the  great  meeting.  He  himself,  as  a 
Quaker,  was  used  to  women  speaking  in  meetings, 
and  has  always  been  what  is  called  a  woman's  rights 
man.  But,  seeing  the  state  of  public  opinion  on  the 
subject,  he  thought  it  wise  to  defer  the  question,  and 
not  swamp  the  Abolition  boat  by  loading  her  too 
heavily  with  other  reforms.  And  he  was  right.  He 
repels  with  warmth,  also,  the  assertion  of  William 
Howitt  that  the  Orthodox  Friends  voted  "  No  "  be 
cause  they  were  unwilling  to  associate  with  Lucretia 
Mott,  a  heterodox  Quaker.  He  takes  issue  with  Mr. 
Rogers  as  to  the  latter's  assertion  that  the  great  mass 


THE    ANTI-SLAVERY    CONTEST.  T57 

of  British  Abolitionism  was  more  despotic,  as  well  as 
more  servile,  than  our  republican  pro-slavery  folk. 
"  They  have  no  freedom  in  England,  and  how  can 
they  have  anti-slavery?"  said  Rogers. 

To  this  Whittier  replies: — 

"Logical  and  convincing  might  this  be,  did  not 
800,000  FACTS  to  the  contrary,  in  the  redeemed  and 
disenchained  islands  of  the  West  Indies,  start  up 
before  us — did  not  the  voices  of  emancipated  men 
and  women,  and  children,  in  those  islands,  rising 
above  the  roar  of  many  waters,  bemurmuring  the 
'still  vexed  Bermoothes,'  invoke  blessings  upon  the 
heads  of  the  men  whom  our  brother  has  termed  *  des 
potic  '  and  '  servile  ' — less  worthy  than  '  our  pro- 
slavery  mob.'  .  .  .  The  truth  is,  our  friend  Rogers 
has  little  sympathy  with  anything  staid,  sober-paced, 
prosaic,  and  formula-fettered;  and  we  suppose  he 
found  most  of  our  English  brethren  mere  non-con 
ductors  of  his  fervid,  imaginative,  electric-sparkling 
Abolitionism.  He  went  dreaming  of  setting  a  whole 
world  free  from  all  kinds  of  oppression — mental, 
physical,  social,  religious,  and  political;  millennial 
fire-shadowings  fell  about  him  in  his  pathway  across 
the  waters;  he  went  to  receive  and  in  turn  communi 
cate  an  enthusiasm  which  was  to  go  round  the 
world,  the  pharmakon  nepenthes  for  all  its  evils — and 
they  gave  him  dull  reports,  plans  for  abolishing  the 
slave-trade — and  for  cotton-growing  in  the  East — 
passionless,  and  figurative  only  in  tables  of  statis 
tics.  .  .  . 

"  They  came  to  welcome  American  Abolitionists  to 
their  hearts  and  homes,  and  join  them  in  promoting 
the  extinction  of  chattel  slavery.  They  did  not,  how- 


158  JOHN    G.    WHITTIER. 

ever,  come  prepared  to  adopt  our  new  doctrines  of 
human  equality;  and  probably  knew  little  of  them 
— our  declarations,  immortal  in  lithograph  and  satin; 
our  *  platform  '  on  which  men  and  women  lose  their 
distinctive  character,  and  become  '  souls  without  sex  ' 
— our  long  '  reports,'  and  indignant  *  protests  ' — old 
and  new  organization  tactics — hair-splitting  meta 
physics  of  the  Joseph  Tracy  school — poetical  and 
rhetorical  flourishes — transcendentalism  engrafted 
upon  puritanism;  Cousin's  'Progress  and  Reform' 
and  Cromwell's  *  sword  of  the  Lord  and  of  Gideon  ' 
— our  discussions  of  ethics,  theology,  politics,  *  fore 
knowledge,  will  and  fate,'  '  long  drawn  out,'  although 
not  always  with  the  'linked  sweetness  '  Milton  speaks 
of  !  The  faintest  possible  rumor  of  all  this  had  alone 
reached  our  British  fellow-laborers.  They  came  to 
meet  American  Abolitionists,  as  men  altogether  like 
themselves, — intent  upon  the  one  common  object. 
That  object  they  supposed  might  be  attained  without 
subscribing  to  our  Yankee  doctrines  of  equality,  or 
sexless  democracy.  For  was  not  Wilberforce  himself 
a  Tory  ?  Did  he  not  with  one  breath  denounce  the 
slave-trade,  and  with  the  next  defend  that  church 
establishment  which  Milton,  eloquently  indignant  in 
the  name  of  his  abused  and  plundered  countrymen, 
declared  had  been  '  for  twelve  hundred  years  a  sad 
and  doleful  succession  of  blind  guides  to  the  souls  of 
Englishmen:  a  wasteful  band  of  robbers  to  their 
purses  '  ?  Was  it  to  carry  into  practice  any  abstract 
doctrine  of  equality  that  the  measure  of  West  India 
emancipation  received  the  votes  of  the  Lords  Spiritual 
and  Temporal  in  Parliament  ?  Did  William  IV.,  in 
giving  his  royal  assent  to  that  Bill,  become  a  radical 


THE    ANTI-SLAVERY    CONTEST.  159 

democrat — a  second  Monsieur  Egalite  ?  And  now 
when  members  of  the  Royal  Family,  Lords  and 
Knights  and  Right  Honorables, — England's  chivalry 
and  her  highest  born, — grace  the  platforms  of  anti- 
slavery  meetings,  will  Ireland  find  redress  for  her 
wrongs — will  China,  swallowing  opium-poison,  under 
the  guns  of  the  British  navy,  obtain  a  respite — will 
the  starving  murmur  of  the  miserable  Chartists  be 
answered  less  sternly  with  pistol-shot  and  sabre-cut  ? 
Not  at  all.  It  were  as  unreasonable  to  suppose  it  as 
that  we  ourselves,  by  reason  of  our  Abolitionism, 
should  be  found  perfect  patterns  of  consistency, 
meekness,  self-denial,  and  kind-dealing — with  no  seg 
ment  wanting  to  complete  the  circle  of  our  perfect 
ibility.  Our  British  friends,  I  suspect,  after  all,  upon 
a  rigid  scrutiny,  will  be  found  quite  as  consistent  as 
ourselves." 

The  communication  closes  with  the  expression  of 
a  hope  that  his  old  friend  Rogers  will  take  what  is 
said  in  a  spirit  of  kindness.  Garrison  spoke  of  this 
letter  as  "very  reprehensible"  and  "somewhat  con 
temptuous."  Charles  C.  Burleigh  also  replied  to  it 
in  a  long  and  admirably  cool  review,  in  which  he  re 
gretted  the  over-statements  of  his  Orthodox  Quaker 
friend,  Whittier,  and  offered  indubitable  proof  (taken 
from  private  letters)  that  William  Howitt  was  right 
in  saying  that  Lucretia  Mott  had  been  given  the  cold 
shoulder  by  many  of  the  Orthodox  Quakers  in  Eng 
land.1  Mr.  Rogers's  reply  also  soon  appeared  in  the 
"  Anti-slavery  Standard  ": — 


1  This  is  now  confirmed  by  the  recently  published  Autobiog 
raphy  of  Mary  Howitt,  who  says,  "  The  English  Quakers  will  not 
receive  Lucretia  Mott  because  she  is  a  Hicksite." 


l6o  JOHN    G.    WHITTIER. 

"  Who  could  have  thought,  while  contemplating  the  lofty 
effusions  of  our  anti-slavery  bard,  that  '  new  organization ' 
would  ever  be  able  to  '  tame  '  or  to  '  catch  '  his  ethereal  spirit, 
or  fetter  his  free  limbs  in  its  narrow  harness  ?  Alas !  has  it 
not  caught  him,  and  reduced  him,  and  tamed  him,  as  to  all 
further  cooperation  in  the  enterprise  of  which  he  has  ever  been 
the  ornament  and  pride  ?  It  may  be  to  humble  us  in  the  dust, 
that  star  after  star  in  our  enterprise  is  thus  starting  from  its 
sphere  in  the  anti-slavery  firmament,  and  disappearing  like  an 
exploded  meteor.  Whittier  at  length  goes  out,  we  fear,  among 
the  other  wandering  luminaries.  We  speak  it  with  grief,  for 
we  have  gloried  in  his  light  and  beauty.  But,  henceforth,  we 
look  for  him  no  longer  blazing  in  the  anti-slavery  van,  bearing 
his  shield  gallantly  abreast  of  the  '  Liberator  ' — celebrating  the 
triumphs  of  freedom  in  deathless  verse,  and  bursting  forth  on 
tyranny  in  volcanic  explosion,  as  it  developed  itself  from  time 
to  time,  under  the  Ithuriel-touches  of  our  movement.  We  look 
no  longer  for  his  banner  in  the  anti-slavery  field.  He  is  trans 
ferred  to  another  service." 

And  in  a  succeeding  letter  Mr.  Rogers  adds: — 

"  He  tolerated  New  Organization  [political  Abolitionism] 
and  threw  the  whole  weight  of  his  powerful  influence  against 
the  editor  of  the  '  Liberator,'  and  the  movement  he  had  from  the 
beginning  singly  (as  an  Abolitionist)  pursued,  and  cast  it  into 
the  scale  with  this  new  type  of  clerical  appealism,  called  New 
Organization  ;  the  most  wolfish,  as  by  experience  we  have  else 
where  found,  of  any  sheep-clad  hostility  that  has  waylaid  the 
anti-slavery  movement."  .  .  . 

"  We  ask  dear  friend  Whittier  to  down  with  his  classic  pride 
and  up  among  us  again — again  to  unfurl  his  beauteous  white 
streamer  to  the  wind — once  more  to  be  the  ornament,  the  ad 
miration,  of  our  thinned  but  deathless  ranks.  May  God  send 
him  health,  and  with  it  his  ancient  vision  and  spirit,  is  our  sin 
cere,  our  earnest  prayer." 


THE    ANTI-SLAVERY    CONTEST.  l6l 

In  Mr.  Whittier's  rejoinder  to  this  he  says  that  he 
has  received  a  copy  of  Mr.  Rogers's  paper,  in  which 
he  is  officially  informed  that  he  is  no  longer  an  Abo 
litionist. 

"  I  am  likened  to  a  star  shooting  madly  from  its 
sphere, — launching,  like  Carazan  of  the  Eastern 
story,  into  the  abyss  of  infinitude — 

'  A  comet  shorn, 
Out  into  utter  darkness  borne.' 

And  a  mock  lamentation  is  set  up  over  me,  which 
would  be  pathetic,  did  it  not  partake  so  largely,  under 
all  the  circumstances  of  the  case,  of  the  ludicrous. 

"Now,  if  the  editor  of  the  '.Standard  '  means  by  all 
this  simply  that  he  and  myself  disagree  on  some 
points  in  reference  to  anti-slavery  movements,  and  if 
believing,  as  a  matter  of  course,  that  his  views  are 
correct  and  mine  wrong,  he  chooses  to  express  in  this 
way  his  dissent  from  my  conclusions,  and  to  expose 
their  folly  and  fallacy,  I  have  nothing  to  say.  Let  him 
argue  down  or  laugh  down  my  heresies,  if  he  can. 
He  may  rest  assured  that  I  can  do  justice  to  a  sound 
argument,  even  if  it  overthrows  a  favorite  doctrine  ; 
and  relish  good-natured  wit  and  humor,  even  when 
exercised  at  my  expense,  consoling  myself,  like  Fal- 
staff,  with  the  reflection,  that  if  I  have  not  wit  myself, 
I  am  'the  cause  of  wit  in  others.'  Even  if  brother 
Rogers  should  so  far  shut  up  the  bowels  of  his  com 
passion  as  to  quote  my  own  poetry  against  me,  and, 
as  in  the  case  of  poor  Cinna,  the  poet  in  Shakspeare's 
'Julius  Caesar,'  'condemn  me  for  my  bad  verses,' 
however  I  might  writhe  under  the  infliction,  I  do  n't 
know  as  I  should  complain. 
ii 


162  JOHN    G.    WHITTIER. 

"  But  if  Nathaniel  P.  Rogers  means  (what  his  lan 
guage  somewhat  strongly  implies)  to  impeach  my 
character  as  an  honest  man — to  assail  my  moral  integ 
rity — to  brand  me  with  the  foul  suspicion  of  treach 
ery  and  hypocrisy  ;  as  one  wilfully  recreant  to  the 
cause  of  emancipation — I  have  only  to  say  that  his 
recent  voyage  'in  search  of  a  World's  Convention* 
has  wrought  in  his  head  and  heart  a  *  sea-change ' 
which  would  have  astonished  the  tenants  of  Pros- 
pero's  island — transforming  the  generous  and  high- 
minded  Christian  gentleman  into  a  false  '  accuser  of 
his  brethren  ' — a  Titus  Gates  swearing  away  more 
than  the  life  of  his  friend. 

"I  am  told,  in  unqualified  terms,  that  I  shall  never 
be  able  to  do  anything  more  for  that  cause  to  which 
I  have  devoted  the  morning  of  my  life — on  whose 
altar  I  have  laid  all  that  I  possessed.  Indeed,  it  may 
be  so.  He  who,  in  His  *  dealings  with  the  children 
of  men,'  has  seen  fit  to  visit  me  with  lingering  pain 
and  illness,  knows  whether  more  labor  will  be  re 
quired  at  my  hands  in  that  cause,  and,  if  so,  will  give 
me  strength  to  perform  it." 

It  must  be  granted  that  Whittier,  like  another  Ivan- 
hoe,  wielded  a  respectable  weapon  in  this  single- 
handed  fence  with  his  group  of  opponents.  And 
the  enemies  of  the  Liberty  party  were  by  no  means 
puny  men  of  their  hands.  To  those  named  should 
be  added  the  witty  Edmund  Quincy,  who  described 
the  New  Organization  as  the  Devil's  own.  As  his 
Majesty  was  sitting  once  on  a  time  (says  he)  in  moody 
meditation,  "gnawing  his  bitter  nail,"  and  pondering 
how  he  could  destroy  the  usefulness  of  the  Abolition 
ists,  "  on  a  sudden,  a  happy  thought  flashed  into  his 


THE    ANTI-SLAVERY    CONTEST.  163 

mind:  'Go  to,'  he  exclaimed,  rubbing  his  claws,  and 
wagging  his  tail  in  an  ecstasy  of  infernal  glee, — 'go 
to, — I  have  it  !  I  will  make  fun  of  them  !  '  And,  even 
as  he  spoke,  out  from  his  teeming  brain,  as  did  Sin 
of  old,  leaped  forth  the  Liberty  party."1 

In  sober  truth,  the  Liberty  party  was  far  from 
being  despicable,  as  the  Garrisonians  affirmed,  and 
still  affirm.  Oliver  Johnson,  as  well  as  the  sons  of 
Garrison,  claim  too  much  for  their  party,  it  seems  to 
me.  It  is  with  them,  just  as  it  ever  was  with  William 
Lloyd  Garrison,  all  or  nothing.  Orna  me  !  was  his 
continual  cry,  and  he  often  tripped  over  the  perpen 
dicular  pronoun.  His  undying  glory  lies  in  his  having 
created,  as  none  other  did,  unless  it  was  Whittier,  the 
moral  sentiment  that  finally  destroyed  slavery.  Every 
thing  that  he  said  was  interesting  ;  his  editorials  are 
trenchant  pieces  of  reasoning  (thought  clear-cut  and 
lucid,  no  hair  on  the  nib  of  his  pen);  he  towers  up 
above  everybody  in  his  faction  in  moral  earnestness 
and  strength.  But  he  was  unelastic,  was  lacking  in 
the  mobility  and  tact  of  genius  ;  and  when,  after  ten 
years  of  agitation,  the  anti-slavery  party  was  clearly 
ripe  for  political  action  (as  the  issue  demonstrated), 
he  and  his  adherents  made  the  strategic  mistake  of 
remaining  stationary.  Looking  back,  we  can  now 
see  that  the  despised  and  ridiculed  Liberty  party, 
like  the  Independents  of  to-day,  was  on  the  right 
track.  Like  the  little  Spartan  band  of  John  Brown, 
their  plans  were  not  so  wild  as  they  have  been  repre 
sented  to  be.  John  Brown  knew  well  enough  that 
his  force  was  small,  but  he  expected  to  draw  to  it 


1  Liberator,  Jan.  5,  '43. 


164  JOHN     G.    WHITTIER. 

thousands  of  blacks  along  the  great  Alleghany  range. 
So  the  new  party  of  Liberty,  seeing  the  South  march 
ing  on  from  victory  to  victory,  and  the  great  question 
of  Texas  looming  up,  saw  that  the  time  was  come  to 
send  the  electric  current  through  the  nation  and 
crystallize  the  discordant  elements  into  the  serried 
ranks  of  a  great  party  :  they  expected  to  be  joined 
by  hundreds  of  thousands  of  Whigs  and  Democrats 
who  should  find  their  organization  the  nucleus  of 
union.  "They  judged,  and  the  event  has  proved  that 
they  judged  wisely  "  (says  Henry  Wilson,  in  his  "  Rise 
and  Fall  of  the  Slave  Power  ")  "  that  by  narrowing 
the  platform,  even  if  it  did  not  contain  all  that  the 
most  advanced  Abolitionists  desired,  if  such  men  as 
John  P.  Hale,  Wilmot,  Giddings,  Palfrey,  Seward,  and 
Mann  could  be  drawn  from  the  Whig  and  Democratic 
parties  and  be  thus  arrayed  in  a  compact  and  vigor 
ous  organization  against  the  Slave  Power,  there 
would  be  great  gain." 

The  declaration  of  objects  and  principles  of  the 
Liberty  party,  as  set  forth  in  their  journals, — and 
notably  in  their  Almanac  for  1846, J — shows  that  their 
plans  were  well  seasoned  and  not  unfeasible,  and 
reveals  their  essential  identity  with  the  platform  of 
the  Free-Soil  party  that  came  later.  The  Almanac 
announces  that  their  aim  was  to  secure  an  anti- 
slavery  Congress  and  Executive,  and  thereby  abolish 
slavery  in  the  District  of  Columbia,  do  away  the 
slave-trade,  annul  the  Fugitive  Slave  Law,  and,  by 
excluding  slaveholders  from  all  offices  in  the  gift  of 


1  This  seems  to  be  the  best  and  fullest  statement  of  the  objects 
of  the  party  that  has  been  made. 


THE    ANTI-SLAVERY    CONTEST.  165 

the  appointing  power,  virtually  disfranchise  the 
South,  and  render  it  imperative  to  close  out  the  busi 
ness  of  slavery  altogether. 

Now,  the  party  did  not  succeed  exactly  in  the  way 
it  had  hoped  to  do,  yet  indirectly  did  succeed.  For 
it  was  the  elder  brother  of  the  Free-Soil  party,  and 
got  so  mixed  up  with  it  in  the  bath-tub  of  the  Buffalo 
Convention  of  1848  that  its  identity  disappeared. 
It  is  well  known  that  at  this  Convention  the  members 
of  the  Liberty  party,  after  due  consultation,  dissolved 
their  organization  (they  were  met  in  the  same  city, 
at  the  same  time)  and  took  their  seats  among  the 
delegates  of  the  just-born  Free-Soil  party;  and  it  was 
remarked  by  one  of  the  speakers — and  the  mot  was 
applauded — that  "  without  tasting  death  the  Liberty 
party  had  been  translated."  1  But,  now,  remember 
that  the  Free-Soil  party  was  merged  in  the  Repub 
lican  party,  which  held  Kansas  for  the  North,  abol 
ished  slavery,  and  saved  the  Union. 

Internal  dissension  was  what  killed  the  Liberty 
party.  In  1844,  however,  in  voting  for  James  G.  Bir- 
ney,  it  held  the  balance  of  power  in  New  York,  and 
decided  the  presidential  election  against  Clay,  who 
had  expressed  himself  as  willing  to  see  Texas  annexed 
as  a  slave  State.  Says  Schouler,  "  Had  half  of  the 
Birney  votes  of  the  election  of  1844  been  given  to 
Clay,  he  would  have  won  the  State."  a  This  is  a  mat 
ter  of  figures,  and  has  not  been  disputed.  It  seems 
to  me  that,  if  this  Third  party  could  have  been  held 
together  by  some  great  leader,  it  would  have  drawn 


1  Wilson's  "  Rise  and  Fall  of  the  Slave  Power,"  ii.  157. 

2  History  of  United  States,  iv.  479. 


166  JOHN    G.    WHITTIER. 

to  it  all  the  elements  that  afterwards  went  to  make 
up  the  Republican  party.  It  is  idle  to  say  that  it  did 
not  represent  genuine  anti-slavery  principles  because 
it  affiliated  with  Free-Soilers,  who  were  many  of  them 
only  half-way  anti-slavery.  The  fact  remains  that 
the  fiery  thread  of  freedom  ran  through  all  the  par 
ties, —  Liberty,  Free-Soil,  and  Republican,  —  either 
darkling  or  in  the  light,  until  it  burst  into  flame  in  the 
Emancipation  Proclamation  of  1863.  Then,  it  is  in 
fact  a  great  mistake  to  say  that  the  Free-Soil  party 
was  not  anti-slavery.  In  their  platform  of  1852,  arti 
cle  five  demands  that  there  shall  be  no  new  slave 
territory;  article  seven,  "immediate  and  total  repeal 
of  the  Fugitive  Slave  Act  of  1850";  and  article  six 
declares  that  "  slavery  is  a  sin  against  God,  and  a 
crime  against  man,  which  no  human  enactment  or 
usage  can  make  right;  and  that  Christianity,  human 
ity,  and  patriotism  alike  demand  its  abolition."  Can 
language  be  stronger  or  more  unequivocal  than  this? 
Honor,  then,  to  the  gallant  little  Liberty  party!  And 
let  it  never  be  forgotten  that,  while  the  Garrison  and 
Phillips  faction  of  the  Abolitionists  was  resting  in 
masterly  inactivity  (politically  speaking)  and  coun 
selling  disunion,  the  Whittier  and  Birney  party  (as  a 
part  of  the  Republican  host)  was  rushing  on  amid  the 
whirl  of  events,  and  gathering  in  the  Great  West  the 
votes  that  saved  the  Union. 

We  have  faithfully  recorded,  as  a  matter  of  history, 
the  differences  of  opinion  and  the  partial  alienation 
of  Garrison  and  Whittier;  and  we  now  note  with 
pleasure  the  gradual  growth  of  reconciliation. 

When  in  1854  the  souls  of  lovers  of  freedom  in 
Massachusetts  were  deeply  stirred  by  the  remanding 


THE    ANTI-SLAVERY    CONTEST.  167 

of  Anthony  Burns  to  slavery,  Whittier  wrote  to  Garri 
son  that  Abolitionists  must  forget  all  past  differences 
and  unite  their  strength  for  the  conversion  of  the 
North.  "  If  I  had  any  love  for  the  Union  remaining," 
he  writes,  "  the  events  of  the  last  few  weeks  have 
'  crushed  it  out.1  But  I  do  not  forget  that  the  same 
power  which  is  needed  to  break  from  the  Union  may 
make  the  Union  the  means  of  abolishing  slavery.  At 
any  rate,  what  we  want  now  is  an  abolitionized  North. 
To  this  end  Unionists  and  Disunionists  can  both  con 
tribute.  At  least  let  us  have  union  among  ourselves. 
In  our  hatred  of  slavery,  our  sympathy  for  our 
afflicted  colored  brethren,  and  in  our  indignation 
against  the  oppressor,  we  are  already  united;  and  let 
us  now  unite,  as  far  as  may  be,  in  action.  For  one, 
my  heart  goes  out  to  all  who  in  any  way  manifest 
love  of  liberty,  and  pity  for  the  oppressed."1 

In  1856  Whittier  sends  Garrison  a  copy  of  a  new 
edition  of  his  poems,  inscribed  to  his  "  old  and  affec 
tionate  friend,"  and  Garrison  graciously  acknowl 
edges  the  gift  in  a  review  in  his  paper. 

With  the  outbreak  of  the  Civil  War,  which  took 
the  work  of  emancipation  out  of  the  hands  of  the 
Abolitionists  altogether,  the  last  vestige  of  variance 
disappears  from  the  mind  of  Garrison  (Whittier,  as 
we  have  seen,  never  had  any  hard  feeling  at  all),  and 
henceforth  all  is  concord.  At  the  anniversary  meet 
ing  of  the  American  Anti-slavery  Society  in  1863, 
Whittier  was  warmly  eulogized  by  Garrison,  who 
said,  "  There  are  few  living  who  have  done  so  much 
to  operate  upon  the  public  mind  and  conscience  and 


1  Liberator,  June  9,  '54. 


l68  JOHN    G.    WHITTIER. 

heart  of  our  country,  for  the  abolition  of  slavery,  as 
John  Greenleaf  Whittier."  And,  when  the  poet's 
seventieth  birthday  was  celebrated  in  1877,  Garrison 
wrote  some  cordial  lines  (which  by  a  stretch  of  imag 
ination  might  be  called  verses)  in  his  honor. 

It  is  almost  needless  to  say  that  John  G.  Whittier 
cast  his  vote  and  used  his  influence  in  favor  of  the 
election  of  Abraham  Lincoln  to  the  presidential 
chair.  There  are  some  humorous,  ringing  campaign 
verses  written  by  him  for  the  first  of  the  two  Lincoln 
election  struggles.  They  have  not  heretofore  appealed 
in  book  form,  but  only  as  a  campaign  leaflet,  or  broad 
side,  and  in  newspapers  thirty  odd  years  ago.1  They 
were  read  at  a  Republican  meeting  in  Georgetown, 
Massachusetts,  in  the  autumn  of  1860  :— 

THE  QUAKERS  ARE  OUT. 

Not  vainly  we  waited  and  counted  the  hours, 

The  buds  of  our  hope  have  burst  out  into  flowers. 

No  room  for  misgiving — no  loop-hole  of  doubt, — 

We  Ve  heard  from  the  Keystone  !     The  Quakers  are  out. 

The  plot  has  exploded — we  Ve  found  out  the  trick ; 
The  bribe  goes  a-begging  ;  the  fusion  won't  stick. 
When  the  Wide-Awake  lanterns  are  shining  about, 
The  rogues  stay  at  home,  and  the  true  men  are  out ! 

The  good  State  has  broken  the  cords  for  her  spun ; 
Her  oil-springs  and  water  won't  fuse  into  one  ; 
The  Dutchman  has  seasoned  his  Freedom  with  Krout, 
And  slow,  late,  but  certain,  the  Quakers  are  out ! 


1  The  leaflet  is  headed  "  A  Voice  from  John  G.  Whittier."    The 
poem  may  also  be  found  in  the  "Liberator,"  1860. 


THE   ANTI-SLAVERY   CONTEST.  169 

Give  the  flags  to  the  winds  !  set  the  hills  all  aflame  ! 
Make  way  for  the  man  with  the  patriarch's  name  ! 
Away  with  misgiving — away  with  all  doubt, 
For  Lincoln  goes  in  when  the  Quakers  are  out ! 

By  way  of  response,  somebody,  assumed  to  be  a 
Quaker,  wrote  some  verses  in  reply  : — 

"  The  Quakers  are  out !     They  had  better  stay  in 
Than  mix  with  the  world  in  political  din  ; 
What  though  the  earth's  potsherds  together  may  smite  ? 
Keep  the  eye  firmly  fix'd  and  unmoved  on  the  right,"  etc. 

Since  the  war,  brief  letters  from  Mr.  Whittier,  in 
support  of  candidates  for  the  Republican  party,  have 
appeared  from  time  to  time  in  the  journals,  and  some 
of  them  are  included  in  the  latest  edition  of  his  prose 
writings.  Every  autumn,  regularly,  he  goes  down  to 
Amesbury,  where  he  is  a  legal  voter,  and  casts  his 
vote.  He  also  takes  a  live  interest  in  the  struggles 
of  other  peoples  for  freedom  and  for  republican  forms 
of  government, 


CHAPTER  III. 

WHITTIER    AT    HOME. 

WHITTIER  is  tall  and  erect  in  form,  with  quick 
movements  and  alertness  of  glance.  The  strict  old 
Quaker  regime  forbade  bows  of  salutation.  The 
Quaker  poet's  jerky  nod  is  therefore  a  concession  to 
the  world,  but  its  deficiencies  are  amply  supplied  by 
the  pleasant  smiJe  that  generally  accompanies  it.  He 
inherited  one  of  those  enviably  sweet  and  lovable 
natures  that  so  often  serve  to  insure  success  in  life. 
He  is  somewhat  hard  of  hearing  now,  and  his  face  is 
grave  and  sad  when  not  animated  by  conversation. 
But  ever  and  anon,  as  you  talk  with  him,  the  features 
are  illumined  by  a  sweet  and  sudden  smile  and  a 
kindly  flash  of  the  dark  eyes.  His  "thee's"  and 
"thou's"  and  quaint  rural  solecisms  of  speech  come 
with  the  shock  of  a  surprise  when  you  first  meet  him. 
But  you  like  him  all  the  better  for  them.  The  more 
liberal  Quakers  have  discarded  the  broad  brims  and 
antique  drab  garments  of  Charles  the  Second's  time. 
Mr.  Whittier  generally  wears  a  black  or  drab  tile  hat 
and  blacK  undercoat.  I  have  seen  him  on  the  street 
in  Amesbury,  wearing  a  cinnamon-colored  overcoat 
and  a  small  gray  tippet  around  his  neck.  The  long 
backward  and  upward  slope  of  the  head  gives  it  just 
the  shape  of  Walter  Scott's  and  Emerson's.  Mr. 
Wasson  keenly  observes  that  this  feature,  together 
170 


WHITTIER    AT    HOME.  171 

with  the  dark  deep  eyes  full  of  shadowed  fire,  the 
Arabian  complexion,  the  sharp-cut,  intense  lines  of 
the  face,  the  light  tall  stature,  and  quick  axial  poise 
of  movement,  shows  that  Whittier  is  of  the  Saracenic 
type.  Mr.  J.  Miller  McKim,  who  was  with  Whittier 
at  the  Philadelphia  Convention  of  1833,  says  that  at 
that  time,  with  his  dark  frock-coat  with  standing 
collar,  black  flashing  eyes,  and  black  whiskers,  he  had 
something  of  a  military  look,  and  was  a  noticeable 
figure  in  the  convention. 

The  next  pen-portrait,  in  order  of  time,  is  given  by 
Thomas  Wentworth  Higginson.1  He  describes  an 
interview  he  had  with  Whittier  in  1843,  "  when  the 
excitement  of  the  *  Latimer  Case  '  still  echoed  through 
Massachusetts,  and  the  younger  Abolitionists  were 
full  of  the  'joy  of  eventful  living.' a  I  was  then  nine 
teen,"  writes  Mr.  Higginson,  "and  saw  the  poet  for 
the  first  time  at  an  eating-house,  known  as  Campbell's, 
then  quite  a  resort  for  reformers  of  all  sorts.  I  saw 
before  me  a  man  of  striking  personal  appearance  ; 
tall,  slender,  with  olive  complexion,  black  hair, 
straight  black  eyebrows,  brilliant  eyes,  and  an  Orien 
tal,  Semitic  cast  of  countenance.  This  was  Whittier 
at  thirty-five.  I  lingered  till  he  rose  from  the  table, 
and  then,  advancing,  I  said  with  boyish  enthusiasm, — 
and  I  doubt  not  with  boyish  awkwardness  also, — '  I 


1  In  the  "  Literary  World,"  December,  1877. 

2  The  reference  is  to  the  attempt  made  in  1842  by  James  B.  Gray, 
of  Norfolk,  Virginia,  to  carry  back  from  Boston  his  fugitive  slave 
George  Latimer.     A  tremendous  excitement   was  the  result,  and 
meetings   were    held    in    Faneuil  Hall,  at  which  Wendell  Phillips, 
Frederick  Douglass,  and  others  made   speeches.    The   excitement 
was  repeated  on  the  floor  of  Congress. 


172  JOHN    G.    WHITTIER. 

should  like  to  shake  hands  with  the  author  of  "  Massa 
chusetts  to  Virginia."  The  poet,  who  was,  and  is, 
one  of  the  shyest  of  men,  broke  into  a  kindly  smile, 
and  said  briefly,  *  Thy  name,  friend  ?'  I  gave  it,  and 
we  shook  hands,  and  that  was  all.  But  to  me  it  was 
like  touching  a  hero's  shield  ;  and  though  I  have 
since  learned  to  count  the  friendship  of  Whittier  as 
one  of  the  great  privileges  of  my  life,  yet  nothing  has 
ever  displaced  the  recollection  of  that  first  boyish 
interview." 

A  writer  in  the  "  Democratic  Review"  for  1845 
notices  in  Whittier  the  "  union  of  manly  firmness  and 
courage  with  womanly  sweetness  and  tenderness, 
alike  in  countenance  and  character."  Fredrika  Bre- 
mer  writes  in  1847  of  his  over-strained  nervous  sys 
tem,  his  "  nervous  bashfulness."  And  here  is  a  rather 
flattering  picture  of  him  at  forty-five,  by  George  W. 
Bungay  :  "  His  temperament  is  nervous-bilious  ;  [he] 
is  tall,  slender  and  straight  as  an  Indian  ;  has  a  superb 
head  ;  his  brow  looks  like  a  white  cloud  under  his 
raven  hair  ;  eyes  large,  black  as  sloes,  and  glowing 
with  expression,—  .  .  .  those  starlike  eyes  flash 
ing  under  such  a  magnificent  forehead." 

The  truest  picture  of  all,  it  seems  to  me,  is  given 
by  genial  Robert  Collyer  : ' — 

"When  you  see  Whittier,  you  see  instantly  it  is  the 
Whittier  of  the  pictures,  only  more  thin  and  gray. 
The  pictures  give  you  a  larger  head,  yet  not  so  fine 
in  the  lines  that  mean  most  in  a  man  of  genius  ;  and 
no  picture  can  give  you  the  eyes,  smaller  than  those 
we  see  in  the  portraits  of  Burns,  but  dark,  intense, 


Every  Saturday,  June  3,  1871. 


WHITTIER   AT    HOME.  173 

and  tender,  and,  when  he  speaks  of  what  touches  him 
intensely,  all  aglow  with  the  light  of  his  soul, — such 
eyes,  indeed,  as  you  only  see  now  in  a  picture  by  one 
of  the  great  masters.  There  is  a  hint  of  the  Quaker, 
you  notice,  in  the  cut  of  his  dress,  but  not  in  the 
color,  which  is  black, — not  new  at  all,  but  so  spotless 
as  to  make  you  wish  he  would  take  all  your  new  gar 
ments  and  put  them  through  a  course  of  training  for 
a  few  months,  that  they  might  get  the  habit  of  look 
ing  as  pure  and  sweet  as  that  when  you  came  to  wear 
them.  A  Quaker  in  his  speech,  but  using  'thee  '  and 
*  thou  '  with  such  a  shy  sweet  grace  as  to  make  you 
wonder  whether  the  finest  manners  may  not  lurk, 
after  all,  within  the  homely  old  Saxon  terms  ;  quick 
with  his  words,  contrary  to  all  his  traditions  and 
training,  and  with  no  hint  of  the  sacred  sing-song  his 
sect  has  always  held  in  such  profound  esteem,  especi 
ally  in  meet'n'." 

And  here  is  a  little  photograph  showing  the  poet 
among  the  voters  of  his  own  town  of  Amesbury.  It 
may  go  down  to  posterity  to  interest  admirers  of  his 
"  After  Election," — a  marvelous  improvisation,  a 
triumph  over  what  to  all  but  a  poet  would  have 
seemed  hopelessly  prosaic  material.1  When  George 
M.  White  was  in  Amesbury  on  election  day  in  Novem 
ber,  1883,  he  went  to  the  town-hall  where  farmers, 
tradesmen,  and  mechanics  were  discussing  in  groups, 


1  The  strong  phrases  of  this  poem  are  familiar.  The  poet  repre 
sents  himself  as  awaiting  telegraphic  election  returns:  "Hark! — 
there  the  Alleghanies  spoke  " — "  That  signal  from  Nebraska 
sprung" — "  Is  that  thy  answer  strong  and  free,  O  loyal  heart  of 
Tennessee?" — "  In  that  wild  burst  the  Ozarks  spoke  !  Cheer  an 
swers  cheer  from  rise  to  set  of  sun.  We  have  a  country  yet .'  " 


174  JOHN    G.    WHITTIER. 

larger  or  smaller,  the  local  issues:  "Among  these 
figures  there  was  pointed  out  to  me  the  tall  thin  fig 
ure  of  an  old  man  wrapped  in  a  long  brown  coat, 
with  a  high  fur  collar  and  woolen  mantle  around 
his  neck,  almost  coming  up  to  the  brim  of  his  tall 
black  hat.  He  was  talking  with  the  various  groups 
around  him.  He  is  much  above  the  average  height 
of  men,  and  few  of  his  pictures  that  I  have  seen 
resemble  him.  His  hair  and  beard  are  quite  white, 
he  wears  no  moustache,  and  his  lips  are  set  with  an 
expression  of  much  decision  and  energy,  which  is 
emphasized  by  a  short  quick  utterance."  ' 

Of  late  years  Mr.  Whittier  has  passed  the  greater 
part  of  each  winter  in  Boston,  taking  rooms  in  some 
quiet  hotel,  such  as  the  Winthrop,  in  Bowdoin  Street, 
on  the  northern  slope  of  Beacon  Hill.  When  he  reads 
a  book,  he  usually  takes  up  old  and  tried  favorites  ; 
and,  although  very  near  the  Athenaeum  library, 
neither  he  nor  Dr.  Holmes  (so  far  as  I  know)  is  often 
seen  there,  eagerly  browsing  among  the  latest  books 
and  journals,  as  is  their  friend,  Dr.  Bartol.  Occa 
sionally  Mr.  Whittier  can  be  entrapped  into  taking 
an  early  tea  with  a  Boston  friend;  but  he  never  feels 
able  to  stand  the  excitement  of  a  large  company  and 
late  hours. 

It  was  formerly  his  custom,  and  I  believe  still  is 
such,  to  spend  a  few  weeks  of  each  summer  amid  the 
sublime  and  yet  quiet  and  pastoral  scenery  of  the 
outskirts  of  the  White  Mountains.  He  used  to  put 
up  at  the  old  Bearcamp  House  before  this  was  burned 
down.  This  old  inn  commanded  a  view  of  rough  and 


Harper's  Monthly,  Februaiy,  1883. 


WHITTIER    AT    HOME.  175 

savage  Chocorua  Mountain,  and  Mounts  Israel  and 
Whittier.  "  There  is  an  atmospheric  bloom  over  all 
the  jagged  ridges,"  writes  Mr.  S.  J.  Pickard,  "  which 
is  to  the  eye  like  the  softness  of  velvet,  but  which 
hides  no  outline  and  does  not  obliterate  the  distinc 
tion  between  rock  and  forest.  The  colors  change 
from  hour  to  hour:  rich  blues  and  dark  purples  alter 
nate  during  the  day,  varied  with  cloud-shadows  and 
drifting  gray  mists."  In  the  valley  through  which 
the  tree-fringed  Bearcamp  flows  are  orchards  loaded 
with  fruit  ;  the  tinkle  of  cow-bells  is  heard  on  the 
mountain  slopes.  In  the  autumn  the  wayside  fences 
are  festooned  with  clematis  in  bloom.  By  the  road 
side  are  masses  of  golden-rod  and  purple  asters,  and 
the  trees  are  crimson  with  woodbine. 

Whittier's  "Sunset  on  the  Bearcamp"  gives  the 
higher  inspiration  of  this  mountain  scenery.  There 
was  an  inspiration  equally  strong,  too,  in  the  open 
fireplaces  of  the  inn.  Your  hot  and  ruddy  wood  fire 
is  a  great  thawer-out  of  conventional  frigidities ; 
and  the  fireplace  of  the  Bearcamp  Inn  parlor  was  not 
inferior  to  its  fellows  in  this  good  work.  Around  it 
used  to  gather  not  only  Whittier  and  his  friends,  but 
such  celebrities  as  Lucy  Larcom  and  Gail  Hamilton, 
with  their  relatives  arid  acquaintances  ;  and  in  the 
basking  heat  the  merriment  often  waxed  deep  and 
subtle.  Comic  verses  were  improvised  on  rainy  days, 
and  Whittier's  gift  of  impromptu  composition  was 
drawn  upon  for  nonsense  verses  to  season  the  feast. 

Amesbury  was  Whittier's  home  for  many  years 
before  the  death  of  his  mother  and  sisters,  and  he 
still  owns  the  old  home  there.  It  is  occupied  by 
friends.  Portraits  of  mother  and  sister  hang  in  the 


176  JOHN    G.    WHITTIER. 

little  parlor;  and  he  keeps  in  his  study  a  few  books 
and  pictures.  The  region  round  about  has  been  cele 
brated  in  his  verse.  From  the  study  window  the 
green  dome  of  Powow  Hill  is  to  be  seen, — an  eleva 
tion  which  he  frequently  climbed  with  friends;  across 
the  Merrimack  rise  "The  Laurels";  and  nearby  is 
the  Powow  River,  and  farther  off  the  Artichoke,  Lake 
Attitash.and  the  green  hills  of  Newbury.  The  intro 
ductory  lines  of  "  Miriam  "  describe  the  view  from 
Powow  Hill.  The  town  contains  manufactories  of 
cloth  and  of  carriages.  It  is  said  to  be  named  after 
Ambresbury  in  England.  It  is  a  quiet  peaceful  old 
village,  especially  in  its  outskirts  of  orchards  and 
meadows.  Mr.  Whittier's  wooden  house  on  Friend 
Street  is  as  plain  as  plain  can  be.  It  was  originally  a 
one-story  structure,  but  a  second  story  with  attic  has 
been  added.  A  few  hundred  yards  from  it,  in  the 
delta  formed  by  the  meeting  of  two  streets,  stands 
the  wooden  meeting-house  of  the  Friends,  where  the 
poet  has  worshiped  God  after  the  ways  of  his 
fathers  ever  since  he  was  a  boy.  When  the  family 
first  came  to  Amesbury,  he  had  with  him  his  mother, 
sister,  and  Aunt  Mercy:  the  brother,  Matthew,  seems 
early  to  have  married  and  set  up  his  own  household 
apart.  After  mother,  aunt,  and  sister  had  succes 
sively  passed  away,  Greenleaf's  niece  kept  house  for 
him  until  her  marriage  with  Mr.  S.  T.  Pickard.  Whit- 
tier  then  removed  to  Oak  Knoll,  a  fine  estate  in  Dan- 
vers,  nearer  Boston,  which  is  the  property  of  cousins 
of  his. 

On  the  table  in  the  tiny  parlor  at  Amesbury  stands, 
or  stood,  Rogers's  group,  "  The  Fugitive's  Story," 
representing  Whittier,  Garrison,  and  Henry  Ward 


WHITTIER    AT    HOME.  177 

Beecher  listening  to  a  black  woman  as  she  relates  the 
story  of  her  flight  from  bondage.  On  the  wall  used 
to  hang  a  large  picture  of  Longfellow  facing  one  of 
Whittier  himself.  The  gracious  and  benignant  face 
of  his  mother,  who  is  clothed  in  spotless  drab,  looks 
down  upon  you,  as  does  a  crayon  of  the  loved  sister. 
Here  is  a  sketch  of  the  little  parlor  as  seen  through 
the  eyes  of  an  Englishman  in  1885  :J — 

"The  small  parlor  into  which  the  visitor  is  shown 
is  furnished  with  the  dreary  and  prim  commonplace- 
ness  of  horsehair  upholstery  and  the  old-fashioned 
conventional  ornaments  under  glass  shades.  It  might 
be  a  Dissenting  Minister's  front  room  in  some  pro 
vincial  English  town,  like  Leicester  or  Northampton, 
not  yet  reached  by  the  iconoclasm  of  modern  aesthet- 
icism.  But  Mr.  Whittier's  kindly  greeting  of  *  How 
do  thee  do  ?  I'm  glad  to  see  thee,'  dispels  all  surprise 
by  recalling  the  fact  that  he  is  not  only  a  New 
Englander,  which  means  simple  living  from  necessity, 
but  also  a  Quaker,  which  means  simple  living  from 
choice." 

The  study,  or  garden  room,  in  the  Amesbury  house 
is  in  the  rear,  one  of  its  windows  giving  upon  a  long 
strip  of  garden  full  of  pear-trees  and  grape-vines, 
and  the  other  (a  glass  door)  opening  upon  a  little 
side  porch.  Above  was  formerly  his  sleeping-room. 
The  Franklin  stove  with  brass  andirons  furnishes  the 
open  fire  which  is  loved  by  all  poets,  but  especially 
by  this  one.  Near  the  sashed  door  is  the  writing- 
desk.  Six  book-shelves  are  fitted  into  the  space 
between  the  chimney  and  the  side  of  the  house,  and 


1  Quoted  from  the  "  Pall  Mall  Gazette." 
12 


178  JOHN     G.    WHITTIER. 

contain  such  works  as  Charles  Reade's  novels,  Irish 
ballads,  and  the  poems  of  Browning.  A  side  shelf 
on  the  wall  is  completely  filled  with  a  blue-and-gold 
edition  of  the  poets.  On  the  walls  hang  a  pen-and- 
ink  sketch  of  his  brother  Matthew,  a  portrait  of 
Emerson,  paintings  of  Essex  County  scenes, — includ 
ing  water-colors  by  Harry  Fenn  and  Celia  Thaxter, 
fringed  gentians  painted  by  Lucy  Larcom,  and  Hill's 
picture  of  the  old  farm-house.  To  this  shrine  of 
poetry  have  come  in  days  past  such  men  as  Garrison, 
Longfellow,  Sumner,  Bayard  Taylor,  Wendell  Phillips, 
James  T.  Fields,  Higginson,  Wasson,  Emerson,  Whip- 
pie,  and  many  more  as  famous  men.  "To  this  nook," 
says  Mrs.  Spofford,  "came  Alice  and  Phoebe  Gary  on 
their  romantic  pilgrimage,  and  here  have  come  many 
others  of  the  illustrious  women  of  the  day,  most  of 
whom  he  reckons  as  his  friends  in  this  generation, 
as  he  did  Lydia  Maria  Child  and  Lucretia  Mott  and 
their  contemporaries  of  the  last.  Here  the  poet  has 
taken  his  ease  in  the  slippers  that  Gail  Hamilton 
made  for  him,  the  cunning  fingers  reconciling  his 
belligerency  with  his  principles  by  clothing  in  Quaker 
drab  the  enraged  American  eagle  wrought  upon  them; 
here  he  has  amused  himself  teaching  tricks  to  the 
house  animals,  which,  if  he  does  not  love,  he  loves  to 
play  with;  here  has  this  verse  been  struck  off  like  a 
spark,  and  that  one  painfully  labored  after  ;  and  here, 
in  spite  of  his  laurels,  have  the  thunder-bolts  of  the 
gods  twice  sought  the  wearer,  the  last  time  felling 
him  to  the  floor  as  he  stood  in  the  doorway,  pros 
trating  his  niece  at  the  same  time,  shattering  a  mirror, 
and  piercing  a  rolled-up  window-shade  till  it  left  the 
burned  mark  of  a  dozen  jagged  bullet-holes.  After 


WHITTIER    AT    HOME.  179 

that  the  treacherous  lightning-rods  were  removed, 
his  nephew  tells  us,  but  the  pertinacious  vender  of  a 
new  variety,  who  could  not  make  the  poet  his  victim, 
had  his  revenge  by  heading  his  prospectus  with  a  cut 
of  the  lightning  descending  upon  Mr.  Whittier's 
house,  and  doing  the  havoc  it  could  not  have  done, 
had  the  house  owned  this  peculiar  and  particular 
protector."  ' 

Whittier  is  as  deeply  loved  by  the  people  of  Ames- 
bury  as  was  Emerson  by  his  neighbors  in  Concord, 
or  as  was  the  Good  Gray  Poet  by  the  citizens  of  Cam- 
den.  And  the  same  is  true  of  Whittier's  neighbors 
in  Danvers, — his  other  home,  which  is  an  hour's  ride 
by  cars  from  Amesbury,  by  the  leisurely  local  train. 

The  old  Boston  path  to  Newburyport  once  led,  by 
an  alternate  and  scarcely  secondary  line,  directly  by 
the  estate  of  Oak  Knoll.  Here  once  lived  the  Rev. 
George  Burroughs,  who  was  pressed  to  death  with 
heavy  weights  for  questionable  dealings  with  Satan  in 
the  days  of  the  witchcraft  delusion.  The  sounding- 
board  of  the  pulpit  in  the  church  where  the  witches 
of  the  neighborhood  were  tried  now  covers  the  mouth 
of  a  well  on  the  estate.  Oak  Knoll  is  a  farm  of  some 
sixty  acres,  and  lies  about  a  mile  and  a  half  north 
west  of  the  village  of  Danvers.  The  stately  house, 
with  its  great  Doric  pillars,  fronts  the  south,  and 
stands  on  elevated  ground  commanding  a  view  of 
distant  hills  and  farms  and  towns.  At  some  distance, 
on  the  opposite  side  of  the  road,  are  the  farm  build 
ings.  The  charms  of  landscape-gardening  vie  with 
the  wildness  of  nature  to  render  this  a  place  of 


1  Harper's  Monthly,  January,  1884. 


l8o  JOHN    G.    WHITTIER. 

delightful  quiet  and  seclusion.  The  carriage-way 
winds  upward  through  bosky  lawns  kept  trim  by  the 
horse  lawn-mower. 

"  Directly  in  front  of  the  house,"  says  Mr.  Pick- 
ard,  "  and  completely  encircled  by  the  curving  ap 
proaches,  is  a  picturesque  knoll  in  the  form  of  a 
dome,  covered  with  a  luxuriant  carpet  of  grass, 
making  one  of  the  most  charming  lawns  it  is  pos 
sible  to  imagine.  This  knoll,  the  summit  of  which 
is  a  little  higher  than  the  site  occupied  by  the 
house,  is  crowned  by  two  magnificent  trees,  an  oak 
and  a  hickory.  The  estate  might  well  have  been 
named  for  either  of  these  noble  trees.  The  grounds 
slope  toward  the  east,  the  south,  and  the  west,  with 
just  enough  of  irregularity  to  heighten  the  beauty  of 
the  landscape  in  each  direction.  Trees,  in  clumps 
and  singly,  deciduous  and  evergreen,  are  placed 
with  careful  reference  to  artistic  effect.  The  variety 
of  trees  is  very  great,  many  of  them  being  rarely 
seen  in  New  England.  There  is  a  fine  magnolia 
near  the  house,  and  farther  off  a  tulip-tree.  The 
rich  dark  hue  of  a  purple  beech  calls  attention  to 
a  fine  grove  in  the  western  distance.  There  are 
English  elms  and  English  oaks,  an  immense  Norway 
spruce,  also  hemlocks,  pines,  chestnuts,  and  almost 
every  other  tree  that  can  be  made  to  grow  in  this 
cli-mate.  There  are  great  orchards  of  apples  and 
pears  ;  a  garden  flanked  with  luxuriant  grape-vines, 
and  yielding  all  the  smaller  fruits,  as  a  matter  of 
course,  also  roses  in  abundance.  Near  the  eastern 
piazza  of  the  house  is  a  large  circular  flower  garden 
surrounded  by  a  neat  hedge,  with  great  green  arches 
for  gateways  to  it.  In  the  centre  of  this  garden  is 


WHITTIER   AT    HOME.  l8l 

a  fountain  throwing  a  fine  spray  to  a  considerable 
height.  In  this  garden  Mr.  Whittier  is  to  be  seen  at 
work  each  pleasant  morning  before  breakfast,  with 
rake,  hoe,  and  broom.  All  the  beds  and  walks  are 
kept  exquisitely  neat,  for  the  poet  is  thorough  in 
everything  he  undertakes." 

No  shooting  is  allowed  on  the  estate,  and  squirrels 
and  birds  sometimes  come  to  the  window  to  be  fed. 
The  squirrels,  says  Mrs.  Spofford,  take  liberties  that 
"  puzzle  such  fellows  as  the  little  Dandie  Dinmont 
who  has  the  care  of  the  house  upon  his  shoulders, 
and  who  darts  after  them  in  a  terrible  fury,  and 
when  he  has  treed  them,  in  his  wrath  stands  on  his 
hind  feet,  waves  his  paws,  and  whines,  begging  them 
to  come  down."  Mrs.  Bolton  writes,  in  one  of  her 
books  for  young  people,  of  one  of  the  dogs  coming 
out  to  welcome  her  and  holding  up  a  bruised  paw 
for  sympathy,  while  the  mocking-bird  on  the  porch 
talked  so  much  louder  than  she  and  Mr.  Whittier 
that  he  was  obliged  to  cover  up  its  cage. 

Among  the  ornaments  of  the  roomy  parlor  are 
a  portrait  of  Whittier  painted  when  he  was  about  forty, 
a  statuette  of  Charles  Sumner,  and  a  verd-antique 
statue  of  Hercules  once  owned  by  Mr.  Sumner.  A 
little  library,  opening  on  the  western  veranda,  was 
built  especially  for  Mr.  Whittier.  On  its  walls  are 
hung  paintings  of  the  Bearcamp  and  Ossipee  region. 
"Above  the  parlor,"  says  Mrs.  Spofford,  "  is  his 
spacious  sleeping-room,  furnished  after  Mr.  East- 
lake's  ideas.  Here  hang  a  fine  marine  view,  a  sketch 
of  the  Shoals,  and  a  portrait  of  Hawthorne,  an 
other  cherished  friend.  The  windows,  which  are  on 
three  sides  of  the  room,  command  all  the  beauty 


l82  JOHN    G.    WHITTIER. 

of  the  place — flower-garden  and  fountain,  the  velvet 
turf  of  the  knoll,  the  stately  groups  of  trees  against 
a  western  sky,  and  the  lofty  lawns  about  the  turreted 
asylum  on  the  distant  hill." 

In  the  autumn  of  1889  Sir  Edwin  Arnold  pub 
lished  in  his  paper,  the  London  "  Telegraph,"  brief 
notes  of  a  visit  paid  by  him  to  Oak  Knoll  : — 

"  Mr.  Whittier's  conversation,  which  was  of  the 
Quaker  fashion,  full  of  '  thees '  and  *  thous,'  was 
pointed,  animated,  and  marked  by  the  felicity  of 
his  printed  works  ;  nor  can  any  cultured  person 
need  to  be  told  how  classic  and  lucid  and  happy 
are  many  of  Whittier's  best  lines.  He  smiled,  half 
sadly,  when  I  expressed  the  wish  that  he  could 
come  across  the  Atlantic  to  see,  under  the  memorial 
window  to  Milton,  in  St.  Margaret's  Church  at  West 
minster,  his  own  admirable  verse  : — 

'  The  New  World  honors  thee,  whose  lofty  plea 
For  England's  freedom  made  her  own  more  sure. 
Thy  page,  immortal  as  its  theme,  shall  be 
Their  common  freehold,  while  the  worlds  endure.' 

He  dropped  a  bright  epigram  in  the  course  of  our 
chat.  I  had  been  praising  Emerson,  and  lamenting 
that  a  great  authority — known  to  us  both — dis 
sented,  and  compared  the  Concord  philosopher's 
style  in  prose  to  '  the  shooting  forth  of  stones  from 
a  sack.'  'Ah!  but,'  replied  instantly  the  old  poet, 
*  thee  knows  well,  friend,  they  are  all  precious 
stones.'  And  I  was  happy  enough  to  obtain  an 
interesting  avowal  from  his  lips.  He  had  been 
speaking  of  the  enduring  and  gloomy  influence  of 
the  old  accustomed  Puritan  doctrines  upon  the 


WHITTIER    AT    HOME.  183 

minds  of  New  Englanders,  of  their  pernicious  dark 
ening  of  life  and  literature,  and  how  he  himself  had 
come  under  the  cloud  of  Calvinism  and  its  terrors. 

*  But    you,'    I    said,  *  sir,  born    in  the   purple  of    the 
Muses,    never   were,    and    never  could  have  been,  a 
Calvinistic   Puritan.'     *  Nay,   thee   are  right,'  he  an 
swered,  'the  world  was  much  too  beautiful  and  God 
far  too  good.     I  never  was  of  that  mind.'  " 

In  the  midsummer  of  '89  the  veteran  Abolitionist 
John  M.  Barbour  published  in  the  "Watchman" 
some  reminiscences  of  Whittier  and  Oak  Knoll  which 
have  the  charm  of  old-fashioned  graciousness  and 
entire  unconsciousness  of  any  infringement  of  the 
laws  of  propriety.  Indeed,  the  privileges  of  age  and 
life-long  friendship  bar  that.  Mr.  Barbour  says  what 
I  should  not  dare  to  say,  and  I  shall  therefore  let 
him  speak:— 

"  On  Tuesday,  June  4,  I  was  at  the  depot  at  the 
hour  named.  The  coach  was  there:  the  lovely  young 
daughter  of  the  genial  and  accomplished  Mrs.  Wood 
man  (who  has  just  published  the  charming  book, 

*  Picturesque  Alaska,' '  which  everybody  should  read) 
jumped  from  the  carriage  with  the  buoyancy  of  health 
ful  youth,  and  gave  me  a  hearty  welcome.     We  soon 
arrived  at   *  Oak  Knoll,'  one   of   the   most   delightful 
spots  on  earth.     The  copious  rains   seemed  to   have 
drawn  the  living  verdure  from  the  ground,  while  the 
century-old  oaks  and  elms  shading   the  old   mansion 
made  everything  beautiful  in  the  extreme.     The  five 
ladies  and  the  venerable  poet  gave  me  a  genuine  wel- 


1  "  Picturesque  Alaska,"  by  Abby  Johnson  Woodman,    Hough- 
ton,  Mifflin  &  Co.,  1889.     Introductory  note  by  Mr.  Whittier. 


184  JOHN    G.    WHITTIER. 

come  ;  though  they  feared  '  Uncle  Greenleaf '  was 
too  tired  to  enjoy  my  company,  as  nineteen  unex 
pected  callers  had  been  there  yesterday.  I  told  them 
I  would  behave  as  well  as  I  knew  how  ;  that  they 
must  not  allow  me  to  trespass  upon  his  time  or 
strength.  We  then  retired  to  his  sanctum.  He 
seated  me  in  a  large,  plush  arm-chair,  convenient  to 
his  best  ear.  We  began  the  eventful  history  of  mutual 
friends  by  whose  agency,  through  God's  mighty  pur 
pose,  the  dark  stain  of  slavery  was  swept  from  our 
country.  Alvan  Stewart,  Gerrit  Smith,  Pierpont, 
Adams,  Garrison,  Phillips,  Sumner,  Rantoul,  Leavitt, 
Colver,  Webster,  Gushing,  and  others  now  with  the 
great  silent  majority,  were  discussed.  We  threw 
aside  all  restraint,  were  young  again,  reviewed  the 
past,  when,  as  disciples  of  Wilberforce,  Clarkson, 
Buxton,  and  Sturge,  we  knew  it  was  wrong  to  buy 
and  sell  human  souls,  before  Garrison  and  Phillips 
came  on  the  active  stage  of  life.  He  said,  '  Friend 
Barbour,  I  can  remember  but  four  of  the  old  Aboli 
tionists  — Bowditch,  Sewall  [Samuel  E.  Sewall  has 
since  passed  away],  thyself,  and  myself — now  living. 
Did  thee  ever  get  hurt  in  any  of  the  mobs  that  have 
so  disgraced  our  country?'  I  told  him  I  had  been 
driven  from  many  places  by  violence.  I  inquired 
whether  he  had  ever  suffered  personal  injury.  'Yes,' 
said  the  good  man,  *  I  was  pelted  by  the  mob  and 
badly  hurt  in  my  face  by  a  large  stone.  I  was  sub 
sequently  told,  by  one  of  the  party,  that  their  pur 
pose  was  to  catch  me  and  paint  my  face  black,  so 
that  I  would  be  a  "  real  nigger."  But  it  was  not 
accomplished.' 

"The  little  silver  bell  rang  for  dinner.     Mrs.  Wood- 


WHITTIER    AT    HOME.  185 

man  called  me  from  the  library,  and  placed  us  in 
proper  order  at  the  table.  I  was  near  the  poet, 
whom  they  almost  idolize.  The  six  ladies  and  two 
men  bowed  their  heads  in  silent  prayer,  for  about  the 
space  of  three  or  four  minutes  of  marked  solemnity. 
Then  the  most  social,  genial,  cheerful  conversation 
marked  the  more  than  an  hour  of  the  admirably  pre 
pared  and  highly  appreciated  dinner.  Mrs.  Mary  A. 
Livermore  was  announced  at  the  door.  Mr.  Whittier 
retired  with  her  to  the  library.  The  others  of  this 
sweet  domestic  circle,  with  myself,  gathered  in  a  large 
room  nearly  filled  with  cherished  memorials  and 
valuables,  presented  to  him  by  hosts  of  friends  and 
admirers  from  all  parts  of  the  world.  At  this 
moment  in  rushed  '  Robin  Adair,'  the  huge  Scotch 
collie  which  I  had  known  in  my  former  visits.  He 
seemed  to  know  me,  was  quite  familiar,  but  the  grand- 
niece  of  Whittier  mildly  rebuked  him  for  his  ardor. 
I  invited  him  to  rest  his  head  in  my  lap,  fondled  him, 
and  he  seemed  as  happy  as  the  rest  of  the  family,  of 
whom  he  is  a  decided  pet. 

"  Mr.  Whittier  has  just  passed  his  eighty-first  year, 
is  feeble,  and  suffers  much  from  neuralgic  pains. 
When  I  told  him  that  at  eighty-four  I  was  unac 
quainted  with  pain  of  any  kind,  never  spent  a  whole 
day  in  bed  in  my  long  life,  he  said,  with  an  expressive 
smile,  that  I  *  ought  to  be  a  better  man,  however  good 
I  might  be.' 

"  I  was  after  this  led  by  the  young  lady  to  the 
home  of  the  valued  Jersey  cows,  with  their  young 
calves.  They  never  slaughter  any  of  their  animals. 
'Robin  Adair'  accompanied  us,  and  was  directed  to 
call  them  from  their  hiding-places  under  the  barns, 


l86  JOHN    G.    WHITTIER. 

which  he  did  with  vociferous  alacrity.  She  asked 
me  if  they  were  not  beauties.  I  candidly  acknowl 
edged  that  they  were.  I  told  her  that  one  of  my 
grandsons  had  'a  string  of  twenty-five  such  Jerseys' 
in  Oregon,  which  he  milked  every  morning  and 
evening,  and  had  a  personal  acquaintance  with  each 
cow. 

"  The  time  for  my  departure  seemed  near.  She 
said,  '  No,  not  yet,  I  am  posted  as  to  trains;  at  the 
proper  moment  I  will  have  the  coach  at  the  door.'  I 
was  then  led  to  the  garden  surrounded  by  the  old- 
fashioned  box-plant,  trimmed  to  about  eighteen 
inches  high.  It  was  filled  with  magnolia  and  tulip 
trees,  and  flowers  of  various  kinds  in  all  their  lavish 
beauty.  They  pressed  upon  me  an  armful  to  be 
taken  to  my  home  for  my  grandchildren,  which,  after 
examination,  the  venerable  poet  said  was  not  com 
plete;  he  added  a  new  variety  which  he  thought  they 
had  not  seen.  This  delightful  family  is  based 
upon  the  religion  of  Jesus  Christ;  its  members  be 
lieve  in  the  constant  influence  of  the  Holy  Spirit. 
They  are  Friends  in  word  and  deed,  of  high  culture 
and  intelligence." 

The  young  lady  spoken  of  by  Mr.  Barbour  above, 
Phcebe  Woodman,  assists  "  Uncle  Greenleaf  "  with  his 
correspondence,  and  he  in  turn  has  presented  her 
with  a  beautiful  horse. 

Mr.  Barbour's  paper  may  be  supplemented  by  a 
few  notes  on  the  poet's  personal  traits. 

I  have  already  alluded  to  his  rural  peculiarities  of 
speech.  This  is  something  that  elicits  the  sympathy 
of  the  farmers  and  laborers  who  meet  him.  A  friend  ' 


Mr. William  M.  Fullerton,  ex-editor  of  the  Boston  "Advertiser." 


WHITTIER   AT    HOME.  187 

once  got  on  his  track  up  somewhere  by  Mt.  Monad- 
nock.  "Why,"  said  an  old  farmer,  "he's  just  as 
natural  and  like  folks  as  can  be.  He  wrote  some 
poems  [!]  right  out  here  in  the  yard,  on  a  board  he 
picked  up,  and  he  was  sittin'  in  a  kitchen  chair  he 
brought  out,  lookin'  toward  'Chusett  yonder.  His 
poems  we  can  understand,  though  we  're  not  book 
people;  he  's  like  folks,  Whittier  is." 

Mr.  George  M.  White  gives  in  "  Harper's  Monthly  " 
some  amusing  chat  by  Whittier  on  onions  and  boiled 
dinners,  etc.  He  never  uses  tobacco  in  any  shape, 
nor  drinks  alcoholic  liquors,  it  seems,  but  stated  that 
he  had  once,  when  he  was  unwell,  and  nothing  tasted 
good,  derived  much  benefit  from  cider.  Cabbage  and 
cucumbers  he  eschews  as  abominations.  Cabbage 
cooked  in  the  house  makes  the  most  diabolical  smell 
that  was  ever  invented;  you  have  got  to  burn  your 
house  down  to  get  rid  of  the  odor  ("  and  Whittier, 
who  was  sitting  near  the  open-stove  cfi'ate,  upon  the 
top  of  which  he  had  deposited  his  ttu.  hat,  folded  his 
hands  and  laughed  a  hearty,  silent  laugh  ").  Onions 
he  thought  not  quite  so  bad,  for  you  can  get  the 
odor  of  those  out  of  the  house  after  three  or  four 
days. 

"Then,"  said  his  friend,  "you  would  not  approve 
of  the  old-fashioned  boiled  dinner?" 

"  No.  I  think  that  is  a  detestable  dish.  I  remem 
ber  that  my  father  used  to  have  it,  in  which  cabbage, 
onions,  beets,  potatoes,  turnips,  and  carrots  were  all 
boiled  up  together,  and  turned  out  into  a  great  dish  all 
in  a  heap,  with  a  great  greasy  piece  of  meat  in  the  mid 
dle.  I  think  that  is  the  reason  why  the  present  gene 
ration  is  not  so  strong  as  the  former.  It  is  owing  to 


188  JOHN    G.    WHITTIER. 

the  way  the  parents  lived,  eating  so  much  pork  and 
potatoes.  Our  last  war  showed  that.  The  farmers 
were  not  nearly  so  strong  as  the  men  recruited  in  the 
cities, — Portland,  Portsmouth,  and  Boston." 

Recent  investigations  are  showing  that  color 
blindness  affects  vastly  more  people  than  was  imag 
ined.  And  the  same  is  true  of  the  newly  talked  of 
astigmatization,  or  inability  to  rightly  estimate  the 
dimensions  of  objects.  A  lady  friend  of  the  poet 
(Mrs.  Harriet  Prescott  Spofford)  tells  us  that  he 
must  be  classed  with  the  color-blind.  Once  when 
the  library  fire  had  damaged  the  wall-paper  near  it, 
he  matched  the  pattern  at  the  store  "  and  triumph 
antly  replaced  it  before  detection."  But  great  was 
the  amusement  of  the  women  to  find  that  he  had  sub 
stituted  a  crimson  vine  for  a  green  one. 

Mr.  Whittier's  health  has  always  been  delicate.  He 
says  he  thinks  he  was  born  with  a  headache.  Since 
the  Philadelphia  mob  he  has  only  at  intervals  been 
free  from  pain  ;  and  this  accounts  for  his  almost  in 
variably  having  to  decline  invitations  to  public 
gatherings. 

Writing  to  Garrison  in  1855  to  enclose  a  contribu 
tion  to  the  Vigilance  Committee  fund  for  helping  on 
the  cause  of  resistance  to  the  Fugitive  Slave  Law, 
Whittier  says  :  "  Does  thee  remember  Felicia  He- 
mans's  lyric  of  the  Captive  Crusader?  From  his  cell 
the  prisoner  hears  the  march  of  his  troop,  the  ringing 
of  bridle  chains,  and  the  sound  of  trumpets,  and 
sees  the  flash  of  their  spears,  and  the  flutter  of  their 
pennons  in  the  sun  and  wind.  I  think  I  can  appreci 
ate  the  captive's  state  of  mind,  since  illness,  for  the 
most  part,  has  made  me  a  spectator  where  I  would 


WHITTIER    AT    HOME.  189 

fain  have  been  an  actor,  for  the  past  three  or  four 
years." ' 

In  another  place  he  writes  :  "  I  inherited  from  both 
my  parents  a  sensitive,  nervous  temperament  ;  and 
one  of  my  earliest  recollections  is  of  pain  in  the  head, 
froiH  which  I  have  suffered  all  my  life.  For  many 
year£  I  have  not  been  able  to  read  or  write  for  more 
than  half  an  hour  at  a  time,  often  not  so  long.  Of 
late,  my  hearing  has  been  defective.  But  in  many 
ways  I  have  been  blessed  far  beyond  my  deserving, 
and,  grateful  to  the  Divine  Providence,  I  tranquilly 
await  the  close  of  a  life  which  has  been  longer,  and 
on  the  whole  happier,  than  I  had  reason  to  expect, 
although  far  different  from  that  which  I  dreamed  of 
in  youth." 

Such  sentiments  as  these  last  give  the  key  to  his 
temperament,  which  is  never  morbid  or  melancholy, 
but  light  and  cheerful,  in  spite  of  ill  health.  The 
sense  of  the  ludicrous  is  very  keen  in  him.  This  is 
remembered  of  him  by  his  old  associates  of  the  Hav- 
erhill  Academy  days;  and  everybody  who  has  talked 
with  him  perceives  it.  In  his  writings  it  appears  in 
such  verses  as  "The  Demon  of  the  Study,"  4<  The 
Pumpkin,"  and  "  The  Double-headed  Snake."  When 
on  his  vacations,  he  likes  to  sit  on  the  piazza  of  the 
hotel,  noting  with  keen  eye  the  foibles  and  idiosyn 
crasies  of  people  who  go  and  come.  Speaking  once 
of  his  early  anti-slavery  toils  and  sufferings,  he  said, 
"  I  try  to  remember  only  the  bright  and  good."  Then, 
with  merriment  in  his  eye,  "  I  have  forgotten  all  the 
mischief  I  did."  If  the  letters  of  Whittier  shall  any 


Liberator,  April  6,  '55. 


190  JOHN    G.    WHITTIER. 

of  them  be  published  hereafter,  the  genial  humor  of 
his  nature  will  be  seen  to  be  a  very  conspicuous  trait. 
Two  letters,  already  printed,  are  here  given.  To  the 
National  Carriage  Builders'  Association  of  which  he 
and  Holmes  were  oddly  made  members  in  1880,  he 
wrote  as  follows: — 

"  I  am  not  a  builder,  in  the  sense  of  Milton's  phrase 
of  one  who  could  'build  lofty  rhyme.'  My  vehicles 
have  been  of  humbler  sort,  merely  the  farm-wagons 
and  backwoods  of  verse,  and  not  likely  to  run  so 
long  as  Dr.  Holmes's  '  One-Horse  Shay,'  the  construc 
tion  of  which  entitles  him  to  the  first  place  in  your 
Association.  I  should  not  dare  to  warrant  any  of  my 
work  for  a  long  drive." 

To  an  officer  of  the  Egypt  Exploration  Fund 
society  he  wrote  in  1884:— 

"I  am  glad  to  have  my  attention  called  to  the  ex 
cavation  of  Zoan.  The  enterprise  commends  itself 
to  every  reader  of  the  Bible,  and  every  student  of  the 
history  and  monumental  wonders  of  Egypt.  I  would 
like  to  have  a  hand  in  it.  I  hesitate  a  little  about 
disturbing  the  repose  of  some  ancient  mummy,  who, 
perchance,  '  hobnobbed  with  Pharaoh,  glass  to  glass, 
or  dropped  a  halfpenny  in  Homer's  hat,  or  doffed  his 
own  to  let  Queen  Dido  pass.'  But  curiosity  gets  the 
better  of  sentiment,  and  I  follow  the  example  of  Dr. 
Holmes  by  enclosing  an  order  on  Lieut. -Gov.  Ames 
for  one  of  his  best  shovels." 

In  reference  to  his  bachelorhood  and  early  loves, 
some  have  thought  they  were  on  the  right  trail  in  his 
poems. "Benedicite,""  My  Playmate, "and "Memories." 
But  he  guards  his  secret  well.  He  was  evidently  in 
terested,  like  all  young  men,  in  a  good  many  girls  in 


WHITTIER    AT    HOME.  191 

his  neighborhood.     In   1832  he  wrote  the  following 
stanzas,  which  are  perhaps  autobiographic:  '— 

"  I  do  not  love  thee,  Isabel,  and  yet  thou  art  most  fair ! 
I  know  the  tempting  of  thy  lips,  the  witchcraft  of  thy  hair, 
The  winsome  smile  that  might  beguile  the  shy  bird  from  his 

tree; 
But  from  their  spell  I  know  so  well,  I  shake  my  manhood  free. 

"  I  might  have  loved  thee,  Isabel ;  I  know  I  should,  if  aught 
Of  all  thy  words  and  ways  had  told  of  one  unselfish  thought ; 
If  through  the  cloud  of  fashion,  the  pictured  veil  of  art, 
One  casual  flash  had  broken  warm,  earnest  from  the  heart. 

******* 

"  I  do  not  love  thee,  Isabel ;  I  would  as  soon  put  on 
A  crown  of  slender  frost-work  beneath  the  heated  sun, 
Or  chase  the  winds  of  summer,  or  trust  the  sleeping  sea, 
Or  lean  upon  a  shadow,  as  think  of  trusting  thee." 

Some  years  ago  an  article  appeared  in  a  Western 
paper  stating  that  a  lady  who  had  recently  died  was 
the  fair  one  once  beloved  of  Whittier.  He  wrote  to 
the  editor  that  the  article  was  very  interesting,  but 
decidedly  imaginative,  since  he  had  not  seen  the  per 
son  mentioned  since  she  was  nine  years  old.8 

His  love  of  children  is  very  marked.  He  has  writ 
ten  several  children's  poems  ("  Red  Riding  Hood," 
"  King  Solomon  and  the  Ants,"  etc.)  and  stories  in 
prose,  and  published  two  books  of  Selections  for 
children's  reading.  He  will  take  a  hand  in  children's 
sports,  and  has  been  known  to  lose  an  important 
train  that  he  might  give  a  ride  to  a  group  of  village 


1  From  the  library  edition  of  the  poems,  1888. 

2  Mrs.  Sarah  K.  Bolton's  "  How  Success  is  Won,"  p.  54. 


IQ2  JOHN    G.    WHITTIER. 

children  who  besieged  the  door  of  his  hack.  He  was 
known  among  the  children  of  Amesbury  as  the  man 
with  the  parrot.  He  describes  this  bird  in  one  of  his 
poems:— 

"  Behind  us  at  our  evening  meal 

The  gray  bird  ate  his  fill, 
Swung  downward  by  a  single  claw, 
And  wiped  his  hooked  bill. 

"  He  shook  his  wings  and  crimson  tail, 

And  set  his  head  aslant, 
And,  in  his  sharp  impatient  way, 

Asked,  '  What  does  Charlie  want  ? '  " 

This  plaintive  bird  also  had  the  habit,  we  are  told, 
of  crying  "  Whoa  !  "  when  teams  passed  the  house, 
and  "  Run  in,  boys  !  run  in  !  "  to  the  schoolboys  when 
their  bell  rang.  Another  little  incident  will  show 
Whittier's  popularity  among  the  boys.  In  the  summer 
of  1876,  while  he  was  staying  at  the  Sturtevant  farm 
house,  back  of  Centre  Harbor  on  Lake  Winnepesau- 
kee,  word  was  sent  to  him  that  a  lot  of  boys  from 
Camp  Chocorua  in  Holderness  would  make  their 
picnic  rendezvous  next  day  under  the  great  Whittier 
pine  on  Sunset  Hill.  He  gladly  complied  with  the  im 
plied  invitation  to  be  present  ;  and,  shortly  after  the 
boys  got  there,  he  was  seen  approaching  in  a  carriage 
through  the  woodland  road,  and  was  greeted  with  a 
round  of  tremendous  cheers.  He  of  course  re 
sponded  by  shaking  hands  all  around  and  enjoyed  it 
as  much  as  did  the  boys.1 


1  Boston  Advertiser,  Dec.  17,  1887. 


WHITTIER    AT    HOME.  193 

His  kindness  to  children  is  matched  by  his  tender 
sympathy  for  unfortunate  men  and  women,  and  his 
generous  toleration  of  opinions  and  customs  different 
from  his  own  (smoking,  for  instance).  He  says  he 
always  reads  a  book  with  sympathy  for  the  author  ; 
that  it  is  easy  to  tear  it  to  pieces  by  criticism,  but  he 
tries  to  find  its  merits.  His  purse  has  always  been 
open  for  the  relief  of  the  destitute, — $50,  for  example, 
to  the  sufferers  by  a  recent  fire  in  Lynn.  His 
hospitable  nature  he  inherits  from  his  mother,  and 
will  put  himself  to  serious  inconvenience  rather  than 
turn  away  a  worthy  guest.  And  yet  he  is  keen  to 
detect  mere  curiosity-hunters  and  spongers.  Though 
even  these  he  is  too  tender-hearted  harshly  to  rebuff. 
Mrs.  Child  writes  amusingly  of  his  attempts  to  get 
rid  of  bores.  "  I  was  amused,"  she  says,  "  to  hear 
his  sister  describe  some  of  these  irruptions  [of  gen 
teel  tramps]  in  her  slow  Quakerly  fashion.  '  Thee 
has  no  idea,' said  she,  'how  much  time  Greenleaf 
spends  in  trying  to  lose  these  people  in  the  streets. 
Sometimes  he  comes  home  and  says,  "  Well,  sister,  I 
had  hard  work  to  lose  him,  but  I  have  lost  him."  ' 
'  But  I  can  never  lose  a  her,'  said  Whittier.  '  The 
women  are  more  pertinacious  than  the  men  ;  don't 
thee  find  them  so,  Maria?'  I  told  him  I  did.  'How 
does  thee  manage  to  get  time  to  do  anything? '  said 
he.  I  told  him  I  took  care  to  live  away  from  the 
railroad,  and  kept  a  bulldog  and  a  pitchfork,  and 
advised  him  to  do  the  same."  Like  all  prominent 
literati,  Whittier  is  deluged  with  manuscripts  for  his 
perusal  and  opinion,  and  with  applications  for  auto 
graphs.  His  patience  is  unfailing;  and,  notwithstand 
ing  his  almost  constant  headaches,  he  reads  and 
13 


194  JOHN    G.    WHITTIER. 

returns,  often  at  his  own  expense,  many  long  manu 
scripts  sent  to  him.  He  used  to  answer,  it  is  stated, 
as  many  as  two  thousand  applications  for  autographs 
in  a  year.  To  an  English  friend  he  said,  "  My  letters 
average  twenty-five  and  thirty  a  day,  and  when  I  'm 
sick  they  accumulate  ;  and  then,  when  I  get  well,  I 
make  myself  sick  again  trying  to  catch  up  with  my 
answers  to  them." 

As  the  years  roll  on  the  bores  increase  with  alarm 
ing  rapidity.  Whittier's  life  at  present  is  said  to  be 
made  a  burden  to  him  by  inroads  of  gaping  tourists, 
who  push  into  his  house  to  look  at  the  curiosity,  but 
have  no  adequate  idea  of  himself  or  his  works. 

Speaking  of  bores,  a  little  story  about  his  poem 
"The  Barefoot  Boy  "  is  in  point  :  Mr.  Whittier  once 
wrote  to  Prang,  the  publisher  of  chromos,  some 
words  of  praise  for  his  chromo  of  "  The  Barefoot 
Boy."  His  words  were  stolen  by  rival  publishers 
and  affixed  to  a  mean  imitation  of  the  Prang  picture, 
—a  piece  of  baseness  which  elicited  the  following 
indignant  letter  to  Mr.  Prang:  "  I  have  heard  of  writers 
who  could  pass  judgment  upon  works  of  art  without 
seeing  them  ;  but  the  part  assigned  me  by  this  use 
of  my  letter  to  thee,  making  me  the  critic  of  a  thing 
not  in  existence,  adds  to  their  ingenuity  the  gift  of 
prophecy.  It  seems  to  be  hazardous  to  praise  any 
thing.  There  is  no  knowing  to  what  strange  uses 
one's  words  may  be  put.  When  a  good  deal  younger 
than  I  am  now,  I  addressed  some  laudatory  lines  to 
Henry  Clay  ;  but  the  newspapers  soon  transferred 
them  to  Thomas  H.  Benton,  and  it  was  even  said  that 
the  saints  of  Nauvoo  made  them  do  duty  in  the 
apotheosis  of  the  Prophet  Joseph  Smith.  My  opinions 


WHITTIER    AT    HOME.  19$ 

as  an  art-critic  are  not  worth  much  to  the  public  ; 
and,  as  they  seem  to  be  as  uncertain  and  erratic  in 
their  directions  as  an  Australian  boomerang,  I  shall, 
I  think,  be  chary  in  future  of  giving  them.  I  do  n't 
think  I  should  dare  speak  favorably  of  the  Venus  de 
Medici,  as  I  might  expect  to  find  my  words  affixed  to 
some  bar-room  lithograph  of  the  bearded  woman." ' 

It  is  a  happy  custom  nowadays  in  America  publicly 
to  celebrate  the  birthdays  of  our  elder  poets.  Mr. 
Whittier  has  been  at  least  five  times  the  recipient 
of  this  honor.  His  seventieth  birthday  was  celebrated 
by  a  grand  symposium  of  writers  in  the  "  Literary 
World  "  newspaper,  and  by  a  banquet  given  in  his 
honor  at  the  Hotel  Brunswick  in  Boston  by  his  pub 
lishers.  Mr.  Garrison  returned  the  compliment  that 
had  been  paid  him  by  Whittier  forty-five  years  before, 
and  wrote  some  lines  in  honor  of  his  life-long  Quaker 
friend.  So  did  Longfellow  and  Holmes.  Emerson 
read  Whittier's  "  Ichabod  "  to  the  company.  Whit- 
tier's  "  Response  "  ("  Beside  that  milestone  where  the 
level  sun  ")  is  a  fragment  of  verse  of  great  power. 
Over  the  centre  of  the  dining-table  was  hung  a  new 
portrait  of  Whittier  wreathed  with  ivy,  and  opposite 
it  was  a  view  of  his  birthplace.  It  is  interesting  to 
note  that  the  negro  waiters  took  a  deep  interest  in 
the  proceedings,  delighted  with  the  reverence  paid  to 
the  man  who  had  done  so  much  for  them. 

About  the  same  time  a  Whittier  Club  was  formed 
in  Haverhill,  and  the  ladies  of  Amesbury  presented 
their  distinguished  townsman  with  a  portfolio  of 
water-color  views  of  many  scenes  in  the  Merrimack 
Valley  that  he  has  described  in  his  poems. 

1  Evenings  in  the  Library,  by  George  W.  Stewart,  Jr. ,p.  138. 


196  JOHN    G.    WHITTIER. 

Mr.  Whittier's  seventy-fifth  birthday,  in  1882,  was 
passed  quietly  in  his  rooms  at  the  Hotel  Winthrop  in 
Boston.  The  citizens  of  Amesbury  wished  him  to 
spend  the  day  in  Amesbury  and  hold  a  reception,  but 
he  was  obliged  to  decline  on  account  of  indisposition. 
He  said  that  it  seemed  a  rather  queer  thing  to  con 
gratulate  a  man  that  he  was  seventy-five  years  old. 
He  thought  the  weather  of  Boston  very  trying. 
"  I  am  a  New  Englander,  and  I  love  New  England," 
said  he  ;  "  but  my  seventy-five  years  of  life  here  have 
failed  fairly  to  acclimate  me." 

On  the  day  when  he  attained  his  seventy-seventh 
year  many  friends  called  to  congratulate  him  at 
Oak  Knoll,  more  than  forty  letters  were  received 
from  friends  abroad,  and  baskets  of  roses  and  a  huge 
birthday  cake  from  nearer  friends.  A  few  weeks  before 
he  had  written  to  a  friend  apropos  of  public  congrat 
ulations:  "  I  have  reached  an  age  when  flattery 
ceases  to  deceive  and  notoriety  is  a  burden,  and  the 
faint  shadow  of  literary  reputation  fails  to  hide  the 
solemn  realities  of  life." 

On  Sept.  10,  1885,  a  reunion  of  the  Haverhill  Acad 
emy  class  of  1827-30  was  held  in  the  rectory  of  St. 
John's  Church,  in  Haverhill.  The  central  figure  and 
theme  was  the  poet  Whittier.  A  representative  of  the 
Boston  "Advertiser"  who  was  present  says:  In  the 
company  was  one  man  who  seemed  neither  to  accept 
nor  comprehend  the  situation.  That  man  was  John 
G.  Whittier.  His  face  and  demeanor  would  have 
afforded  study  for  a  psychologist.  The  face  was  one 
on  which  was  "  a  look  of  shyness,  of  surprise,  of  per 
plexity,  withal;  a  countenance  irradiated  by  recipro 
cal  affection  and  pleasure  in  seeing  others  pleased. 


WHITTIER   AT    HOME.  197 

That  it  was  fifty-seven  years  since  he  had  entered 
Haverhill  Academy  he  remembered  with  a  certain 
sweet  melancholy.  That  everybody  was  vying  with 
everybody  else  in  making  love  to  him  he  could  not 
help  observing.  But  what  it  was  all  about,  and  why 
people  would  persist  in  talking  of  him  when  he  wanted 
other  more  congenial  topics  to  be  uppermost, — these 
things  evidently  puzzled  him."  The  reporter  speaks 
of  the  winning  way  in  which  Whittier  seemed  to  take 
him  into  his  confidence  as  he  placed  in  his  hands  the 
manuscript  of  the  verses  he  had  written  for  the  occa 
sion,  explaining  to  him  the  motives  for  various  lines 
as  called  forth  by  old  memories.  A  few  days  after 
this  meeting  Mr.  Whittier  was  presented  with  an 
album  containing  photographs  of  many  of  his  old 
classmates. 

By  1887   Whittier  could  say  with  the  old  man  in 
"Macbeth":— 

"  Threescore  and  ten  I  can  remember  well : 
Within  the  volume  of  which  time,  I  have  seen 
Hours  dreadful,  and  things  strange." 

But  not  more  dreadful  hours  than  hours  delightful, 
surely,  if  one  may  judge  by  those  of  his  eightieth 
birthday.  James  Parton  wrote  of  him  !  that  he  was 
carrying  his  burthen  of  eighty  years  with  considerable 
ease  and  with  constant  cheerfulness,  walking  with 
alert  step,  and  seeming  better  than  he  was  five  years 
before.  His  birthday  was  celebrated  by  the  school 


1  In  the  pleasant  memorial  tribute  which  occupied  several  pages 
of  the  Boston  "  Advertiser  "  of  Dec.  17,  1887,  and  which  has  been 
several  times  quoted  in  this  volume. 


198  JOHN    G.    WHITTIER. 

children  of  the  whole  country.  The  Essex  Club  of 
Boston  presented  him  with  a  large  album  containing 
a  eulogy  by  Senator  Hoar  and  other  papers.  At  Oak 
Knoll  there  was  a  busy  day.  The  morning  was  clear 
and  brilliant,  air  bracing,  skies  high  and  blue.  Every 
room  in  the  house  was  adorned  with  gift-baskets  and 
bouquets  of  roses  and  other  flowers.  An  overflowing 
basket  of  fruit  arrived,  and  was  placed  on  the  dining- 
room  table  opposite  the  great  birthday  cake.  In  the 
library  stood  a  basket  of  eighty  roses  edged  with 
ferns, — the  gift  of  ladies  of  Boston.  On  an  open  book 
of  Cornelia  Cook  roses,  margined  with  yellow  ones 
and  intersprinkled  with  violets,  lay  a  pen  of  violets; 
on  the  broad  white  satin  book-mark  was  inscribed  the 
closing  stanza  of  "  My  Triumph": — 

"  I  feel  the  earth  move  sunward, 
I  join  the  great  march  onward, 
And  take,  by  faith,  while  living, 
My  freehold  of  thanksgiving." 

The  colored  students  of  Hampton  sent  a  sofa  cushion ; 
and  from  the  new  town  of  "  Whittier  "  in  California 
came  an  advance  copy  of  the  town's  newspaper,  with 
an  editorial  greeting.  The  Governor  of  the  Common 
wealth  cut  the  birthday  cake  and  offered  pieces  to 
each  visitor.  All  day  the  poet  passed  to  and  fro 
among  the  guests,  now  greeting  a  bevy  of  children  in 
the  parlor,  now  conversing  with  old  friends  in  the 
library,  and  again  in  the  dining-room  offering  refresh 
ments  to  some  new  caller. 

Contributors  to  the  "  Boston  Advertiser's  "  sym- 
posial  Whittier  number  were  such  friends  as  Edward 
Everett  Hale,  Oliver  Wendell  Holmes,  Walt  Whit- 


WHITTIER    AT    HOME.  199 

man,  Dr.  Bartol,  Senator  Hoar,  and  T.  W.  Higginson. 
Here  is  Walt  Whitman's  striking  bit  of  verse:— 

"  As  the  Greek's  signal  flame,  by  antique  records  told, 
Rose  from  the  hill-top,  like  applause  and  glory, 
Welcoming  in  fame  some  special  veteran,  hero, 
With  rosy  tinge  reddening  the  land  he  'd  served, 
So  I  aloft  from  Mannahatta's  ship-fringed  shore 
Lift  high  a  kindled  brand  for  thee,  Old  Poet." 

And  here  are  some  of  the  lines  of  Dr.  Holmes: — 
"  Friend,  whom  thy  fou ,  score  winters  leave  more  dear 
Than  when  life's  roseate  summer  on  thy  cheek 
Burned  in  the  flush  of  manhood's  manliest  year, 
Lonely,  how  lonely !  is  the  snowy  peak 
Thy  feet  have  reached,  and  mine  have  climbed  so  near  ! 
Close  on  thy  footsteps  'mid  the  landscape  drear 
I  stretch  my  hand  thine  answering  grasp  to  seek, 
Warm  with  the  love  no  rippling  rhymes  can  speak! 

On  Dec.  17,  1889,  Whittier's  health  was  so  poor 
that  he  was  obliged  to  ask  his  editorial  friends  to 
state  his  inability  to  endure  the  excitement  of  birth 
day  demonstrations  or  to  answer  many  letters.  The 
day  was  celebrated  by  a  flag-raising  at  a  Whittier 
School,  and  by  a  general  observance  of  Whittier  Day 
in  the  public  schools  of  the  country. 

On  Dec.  17,  1891,  the  fullest  and  most  enthusias 
tic  birthday  celebration  of  all  —  and  the  last  —  was 
held  at  the  home  of  Joseph  Cartland  in  Newburyport 
(also  once  the  home  of  the  Harriet  Livermore  of 
"  Snow-Bound  ").  Mr.  Whittier  exercised  all  his  old- 
Hme  hospitality,  and  stood  the  fatigue  very  well.  The 
"  Boston  Advertiser  "  and  the  "  Boston  Journal  "  pub 
lished  notable  Whittier  numbers  in  honor  of  the 
New  England  poet. 


JOHN    G.    WHITTIER. 


LAST     HOURS. 

And  here,  alas,  our  narrative  of  the  poet's  life  must 
draw  to  a  close.  For  the  fell  sergeant  Death  has  laid 
his  mace  upon  the  shoulder  of  the  revered  minstrel, 
the  beloved  citizen-poet  of  New  England,  and  sum 
moned  him  away.  It  but  remains  briefly  to  tell  of 
his  last  hours,  and  then  to  let  the  curtain  fall. 

Mr.  Whittier  had  been  passing  the  summer  of  1892 
in  quiet  enjoyment  at  "Elmfield,"  in  Hampton  Falls, 
N.  H.,  the  town  where  his  Batchelder  and  Hussey  an 
cestors  once  lived,  the  home  of  his  young  Quaker 
friend,  Miss  Abby  Gove.  Miss  Gove  is  a  member  of 
the  once  flourishing  society  of  Friends  in  Hampton 
Falls,  but  has  of  late  years  worshiped  in-  the  little 
Friends'  church  in  Amesbury.  Mrs.  Edward  Gove 
was  an  eloquent  preacher,  and  Whittier  wrote  a 
memorial  poem  on  her  death.1  What  drew  him  to 
Miss  Gove's  was  his  desire  to  escape  summer  visitors. 
One  day,  after  meeting,  he  said  to  her,  "  Abby,  has 
thee  a  spare  room  up  at  thy  house? "  Her  answer 
was  Yes.  His  room  opened  on  a  balcony  command 
ing  a  view  of  the  sea  near  Rivermouth  Rocks  and 
Hampton  Beach,  scenes  of  his  earlier  poems.  He 
and  his  friends  took  their  meals  at  the  tavern  adjoin 
ing,  reached  by  a  moment's  walk  through  a  pine 
grove. 

The  Gove  residence  on  "the  hill"  is  rich  in  treas- 


1  So  Mr.  F.  B.  Sanborn  says,  who,  as  well  as  Whittier,  is  a  de 
scendant  of  Stephen  Batchelder,  and  lived  as  a  boy  in  this  neigh 
borhood. 


WHITTIER    AT    HOME.  199& 

ures  of  old  Colonial  days.  It  stands  a  little  off  of  the 
winding  road  with  its  venerable  elms.  Across  the 
way  is  an  old  orchard  containing  paths  and  rustic 
seats.  Here  Whittier  otten  strolled,  or  from  the 
piazza  watched  through  a  glass  the  sails  upon  the 
blue  sea,  or  conversed  with  friends,  or  read  the 
papers  and  magazines.  It  had  been  his  intention  to 
return  with  the  Cartlands  to  their  home  in  New- 
buryport  on  September  6.  He  was  first  takjn  ill  on 
August  31.  By  Saturday,  September  3,  a  remarkable 
irregularity  of  the  heart  s  action  was  experienced, 
and  he  grew  suddenly  worse.  Dr.  John  A.  Doug 
las  of  Amesbury,  and  Dr.  Frances  E.  Howe  of  Nevv- 
buryport,  and  Dr.  Sarah  Ellen  Palmer  of  Boston 
were  the  physicians  called  to  his  bedside.  Mr.  Whit- 
tier  was  conscious  and  able  to  recognize  those  about 
him,  but  was  at  first  unable  to  articulate,  and  seemed 
to  be  suffering  from  partial  paralysis  of  the  left  side. 
He  made  several  unavailing  attempts  to  communi 
cate  something  to  his  nephew,  Mr.  Pickard,  appar 
ently  on  some  matter  of  business.  On  September 
5  he  seemed  slightly  better  and  took  a  little  nour 
ishment.  He  was  fully  aware  of  his  critical  condition, 
and  whispered  to  the  loving  friends  who  were  con 
stantly  bathing  his  head,  "  It  is  of  no  use."  To  his 
niece,  Mrs.  Pickard,  who  asked  him  if  he  knew  her, 
he  replied,  "  Yes,  I  have  known  you  all  the  time." 

A  cable  message  of  sympathy  was  received  on 
Wednesday  from  friends  in  England.  Neighbors 
calling  wero,  however,  not  allowed  to  enter  the  room 
of  the  dying  man. 

At  4.30  of  the  yth  of  September  Whittier  calmly 
breathed  his  last,  surrounded  by  some  of  his  closest 


199^  JOHN    G.    WHITTIER. 

relatives.  In  Amesbury  and  Haverhill,  as  soon  as 
the  news  was  known,  bells  were  tolled  and  flags  dis 
played  at  half-mast.  The  funeral  occurred  at  the 
Whittier  home  in  Amesbury  on  Saturday  at  2.30. 
Memorial  exercises  were  held  and  addresses  made 
(in  place  of  the  usual  funeral  exercises)  in  the  pretty 
garden  in  the  rear  of  the  house,  while  the  dead  poet 
lay  within,  flower-surrounded,  in  the  little  front  par 
lor.  E.  C.  Stedman,  Elizabeth  Stuart  Phelps,  Parker 
Pillsbury,  Mrs.  Spofford,  and  many  other  personal 
friends  were  present.  Whittier  was  buried  in  the 
Friends'  Cemetery  in  the  family  lot.  Thousands  of 
people  visited  the  grave  on  the  days  immediately 
following  the  funeral.  The  old  farmhouse  at  Haver- 
hill  was  draped  in  mourning  and  the  public  offices 
closed  during  the  hour  of  the  funeral,  while  the 
city  schools  at  the  same  time  gave  up  the  hour  to 
exercises  appropriate  to  the  occasion.  Memorial 
services  were  also  held  in  Danvers  and  Salem  and  by 
citizens  of  Amesbury. 

By  his  will  Whittier  bequeathed  to  relatives  some 
$50,000  or  more  in  sums  ranging  from  $500  to  $15,- 
ooo,  the  largest  bequest  being  to  his  niece,  Mrs. 
Lizzie  T.  Pickard,  who  kept  house  for  him  so  long  in 
Amesbury.  He  left  her  $15,000,  his  two  houses  in 
Amesbury,  and  two  or  three  minor  gifts.  The  list 
of  relatives  remembered  by  cash  gifts  is  a  long  one — 
no  one  forgotten  (good,  kind  Uncle  Greenleaf!).  To 
Lucy  Larcom  he  left  $500  and  the  copyright  of  two 
of  his  works,  and  to  Sarah  Orne  Jewett  and  Annie 
Fields  a  painting  each.  His  Amesbury  furniture  and 
pictures  and  books  go  to  Mrs.  Pickard,  and  the  same 
at  Oak  Knoll  to  the  members  of  that  household. 


WHITTIER    AT    HOME.  199^ 

Various  charitable  organizations  of  Essex  County 
and  the  Hampton  (Virginia)  school  each  received 
legacies.  His  manuscripts  and  other  papers  go  u 
his  literary  executor,  Mr.  S.  T.  Pickard.  The  amount 
of  property  he  left — from  $75,000  to  $100,000  about — 
will  be  a  surprise  to  those  who  suppose  poetry  never 
pays.  But  to  be  a  popular  poet  and  a  Quaker  means 
thrift  and  wealth. 

On  the  day  of  Whittier's  death  a  Boston  paper 
gave  some  interesting  gossip  about  his  old  winter 
haunt,  the  Hotel  Winthrop  in  Boston.  It  seems  that 
he  got  acquainted  with  this  quiet  hostelry  through 
the  accident  of  going  there  to  call  on  Celia  Thaxter 
in  1881,  and  in  November  of  that  year  he  joined  the 
ladies  of  his  Oak  Knoll  home  at  this  hotel  in  Boston 
and  passed  his  first  winter  there.  The  fire-escape  of 
his  room  made  a  little  balcony  looking  out  upon  the 
ivied  old  church  of  St.  John  the  Evangelist.  His 
reception-room  was  the  parlor.  His  method  of  get 
ting  about  for  long  distances  was  to  take  a  herdic. 
Writing  from  Amesbury  in  1884,  he  said,  alluding  to 
the  severe  winters  of  New  England,  "I  wish  the  Pil 
grim  Fathers  had  drifted  around  Cape  Horn  and 
landed  at  Santa  Barbara  instead  of  Plymouth  Rock, 
and  I  had  in  consequence  been  born  in  a  land  of 
flowers  instead  of  ice."  However,  to  the  same  corre 
spondent  he  wrote  that  "  life  at  four-score  was  worth 
living."  Mr.  Whittier  said  he  liked  the  Winthrop  be 
cause  of  its  quiet  and  because  in  the  great  hotels  he 
was  overwhelmed  with  service,  but  here  it  seemed 
more  like  home.  He  had  always  been  used  to  wait 
ing  upon  himself,  and  he  liked  a  place  where  they 
would  let  him  do  so. 


199'  JOHN    G.    WHITTIER. 

Little  facts  of  interest  that  transpired  after  his 
death  were  such  as  that  he  never  spent  more  than 
$50  a  year  on  his  dress;  that  his  income  was  "about 
that  of  the  average  college  professor";  that  he  was 
fond  of  splitting  wood  for  exercise;  that  his  tea  was 
imported  especially  for  him,  and  kept  in  a  painted 
porcelain  jar;  that  he  had  no  musical  sense  and  didn't 
know  one  tune  from  another;  that  he  never  at 
tended  a  theatrical  performance  in  his  life  nor 
(so  the  tradition  in  Amesbury  runs)  ever  rose  to 
speak  on  religion  in  the  Friends'  meetings;  that  he 
once  or  twice  expressed  regret  that  he  had  never 
married;  and  that  his  reason  for  never  having  traveled 
was  that  the  reading  of  books  of  travel  left  such  a 
vivid  picture  in  his  mind  of  the  scenes  described  as 
made  it  seem  superfluous  for  him  to  visit  them  himself. 

Those  who  know  something  of  Elizabeth  Whittier 
will  thank  me  for  closing  these  final  and  supplement 
ary  notes  with  a  rarely  drawn  portrait  from  the  pen 
of  the  most  accomplished  and  scholarly  of  living 
American  essayists.1 

"  Elizabeth  Whittier,"  he  says,  "  was  one  of  the 
rarest  of  women,  her  brother's  complement;  possess 
ing  all  the  readiness  of  speech  and  facility  of  inter 
course  which  he  wanted;  taking  easily,  in  his  pres 
ence,  the  lead  in  conversation  which  the  poet  so 
gladly  abandoned  to  her,  while  he  sat  rubbing  his 


1  Thomas  Wentworth  Higginson,  in  New  York  "Evening  Post," 
September  7,  1892.  Higginson  was  the  friend  of  Whittier  because 
he  knew  him,  but  the  bitter  and  malignant  enemy  of  Walt  Whitman 
(a  greater  than  Whittier)  because  he  did  not  know  him.  Such  is 
the  limitation  of  the  human  mind! 


WHITTIER    AT    HOME. 

hands  and  laughing  at  her  daring  sallies.  She  was 
as  unlike  him  in  person  as  in  mind:  for  his  dignified 
erectness,  even  amounting  to  stiffness,  she  had  end 
less  motion  and  vivacity;  for  his  regular  and  hand 
some  features  she  had  a  long  Jewish  nose,  so  full  of 
expression  that  it  seemed  to  enhance  instead  of  injure 
the  effect  of  the  large  and  liquid  eyes  that  glowed 
with  merriment  and  sympathy  behind  it.  There  was 
something  bird-like  in  Elizabeth  Whittier's  look  and 
in  the  movements  of  her  head;  her  quick  thoughts 
came  like  javelins;  a  saucy  triumph  gleamed  in  the 
great  eyes;  the  head  moved  a  little  from  side  to  side 
as  with  the  quiver  of  a  weapon;  and,  lo!  you  were 
transfixed.  Her  poems,  tragic,  sombre,  imaginative, 
give  no  impression  of  this  side  of  her  nature;  but  it 
was  as  if  long  generations  of  parents  who  had  *  held 
the  Quaker  role'  had  broken  into  reactionary  sun 
shine  and  rollicking  gayety  in  her.  Her  wit  had 
play  upon  the  grave  Friends  themselves,  as  they 
gathered  at  the  time  of  'Quarterly  Meetings '  under 
the  roof  which  latterly  held  all  of  Quakerism  that  was 
left  in  Amesbury;  she  wound  them  round  her  finger 
in  spite  of  themselves,  and  did  not  hesitate  to  dis 
cipline  the  most  venerable  Friend  on  the  high  seats 
until  she  had  compelled  him  to  rise  and  close  the 
meeting  by  shaking  hands  in  good  seasor,  lest  the 
dinner  should  be  overdone.  She  was  a  woman  never 
to  be  forgotten;  and  no  one  can  truly  estimate  the 
long  celibate  life  of  the  poet  without  bearing  in  mind 
that  he  had  for  many  years  at  his  own  fireside  the 
concentrated  wit  and  sympathy  of  all  womanhood  in 
this  one  sister." 


CHAPTER  IV. 

FRIENDSHIPS    AND    OPINIONS. 

To  speak  of  all  of  Mr.  Whittier's  friends  would  re 
quire  an  enumeration  of  several  thousand  names  ; 
for  every  one  who  has  ever  known  him  loves  him. 
Among  the  eminent  persons  with  whom  he  has  been 
on  terms  of  intimate  association  are  Dr.  Samuel  G. 
Howe,  Edwin  P.  Whipple,  George  L.  Stearns,  Samuel 
Sewall,  Theodore  D.  Weld,  James  T.  Fields  and  Mrs. 
Annie  Fields,  Bayard  Taylor,  N.  P.  Rogers,  Nathaniel 
Hawthorne,  Longfellow,  Emerson,  Holmes,  and 
Lowell  ;  Mary  Howitt,  Harriet  Prescott  Spofford, 
Gail  Hamilton,  Celia  Thaxter,  Elizabeth  Stuart 
Phelps,  Charles  Sumner,  John  Bright,  and  Dom 
Pedro,  the  late  Emperor  of  Brazil. 

The  occurrence  of  poets'  names  in  this  list  would 
seem  to  falsify  Landor's  affirmation,  that  poets  hate 
poets  the  world  over. 

Whittier  admired  Sumner  for  his  noble  advocacy 
of  peace  doctrines,  in  "The  True  Grandeur  of  Nations" 
and  other  orations,  and  for  his  magnanimous  attitude 
toward  the  South  after  the  close  of  the  Civil  War. 

Longfellow's  Journals  record  frequent  visits  paid 
by  him  to  Whittier  and  by  Whittier  to  him.  Not  a 
great  while  before  Longfellow  died  he  wrote  to  his 
friend  to  come  and  see  him.  Mr.  Whittier  was  not 
able  to  go  at  once  ;  and,  when  he  did  at  last  come,  it 
200 


FRIENDSHIPS   AND    OPINIONS.  2OI 

was  too  late  :  Longfellow  was  then  too  ill  to  see  any 
one,  and  died  shortly  afterward. 

Emerson,  too,  was  a  frequent  visitor  at  Amesbury. 
Elizabeth  Whittier  used  to  say  that  she  liked  him 
better  than  any  man  who  visited  them,  because  he 
never  talked  over  her  head.  And  her  brother  has 
said,  "  Emerson  was  a  delightful  companion,  and  was 
often  here.  No  matter  who  remained,  when  he  left 
there  was  a  void."  1 

Of  the  genial  relation  existing  between  Holmes  and 
Whittier  the  following  from  a  letter  of  the  Amesbury 
poet  to  Dr.  Holmes  on  occasion  of  one  of  Dr. 
Holmes's  birthday  celebrations  is  ample  witness  : 
"  My  father,"  says  he,  "  used  to  tell  of  a  poor  inno 
cent  in  his  neighborhood  who,  whenever  he  met  him, 
would  fall  to  laughing,  crying,  and  dancing:  '  I  can't 
help  it,  I  can't  help  it;  I  'm  so  glad  you  and  I  are  alive.' 
And  I,  like  the  poor  fellow,  can't  help  telling  thee 
that  I  am  glad  thee  and  I  are  alive  ;  glad  that  thy 
hand  has  lost  nothing  of  its  cunning  and  thy  pen  is 
still  busy  ;  and  I  say  to  thee,  in  the  words  of  Solomon 
of  old,  *  Rejoice,  O  young  man,  in  thy  youth,  and  let 
thy  heart  cheer  thee  in  the  days  of  thy  youth.'  But 
do  n't  exult  over  thy  seniors  who  have  not  found  the 
elixir  of  life  and  are  growing  old  and  past  their  use 
fulness.  I  have  just  got  back  from  the  hills  and  am 
tired,  and  a  pile  of  unanswered  letters  are  before  me 
this  morning  ;  so  I  can  only  say,  God  bless  thee." 

The  charmed  circle  must  be  drawn  to  include 
James  Russell  Lowell,  also,  who  on  occasion  of  the 


1  Conversation  with  Frank  A.  Burr,  Boston  "  Herald,"  Nov.  18, 
1883. 


202  JOHN    G.    WHITTIER. 

unveiling  of  a  life-size  portrait  of  Whittier  by  Edgar 
Parker  in  the  Friends'  School  in  Providence,  in  1884, 
wrote  a  prose  greeting,  accompanied  by  these  poetical 
lines: '— 

"  New  England's  poet,  rich  in  love  as  years, 
Her  hills  and  valleys  praise  thee,  and  her  brooks 
Dance  to  thy  song :  to  her  grave  sylvan  nooks 
Thy  feet  allure  us,  which  the  wood-thrush  hears 
As  maids  their  lovers,  and  no  treason  fears. 
Through  thee  her  Merrimacks  and  Agiochooks, 
And  many  a  name  uncouth,  win  loving  looks, 
•     Sweetly  familiar  to  both  Englands'  ears. 
Peaceful  by  birthright  as  a  virgin  lake, 
The  lily's  anchorage,  which  no  eyes  behold 
Save  those  of  stars,  yet,  for  thy  brother's  sake, 
That  lay  in  bonds,  thou  blew'st  a  blast  as  bold 
As  that  wherewith  the  heart  of  Roland  brake, 
Far  heard  through  Pyrenean  valleys  cold." 

To  a  young  lady  who  visited  him  in  1887  Whittier 
said  :  "  I  remember  the  first  time  that  I  saw  Haw 
thorne.  I  went  to  make  him  a  visit,  and  Mrs. 
Hawthorne  called  him  in  to  see  me.  He  came  into 
the  room  with  a  look  on  his  face  that  made  me  feel 
as  though  he  had  been  sitting  writing  for  a  long  time 
in  a  dark  place."  Whittier's  face  lighted  up  as  he 
added,  in  homely,  telling  phrase,  "  He  looked  as 
though  he  had  just  come  up  from  down  cellar." 
Elsewhere  alluding  to  this  same  call,  apparently, 
Whittier  says  that  Hawthorne  remarked  of  the  plot  of 
a  book  he  was  writing,  "  It  darkens  damnably." 

To  Harriet  Prescott  Spofford,  who  is  a  not  very 
distant  neighbor  of  Whittier's,  in  her  home, — 


1  As  published  in  Boston  "  Advertiser,"  Oct.  25,  '84. 


FRIENDSHIPS   AND    OPINIONS.  203 

"  Set  like  an  eagle's  nest 
Among  Deer  Island's  immemorial  pines, 
Crowning  the  crag  on  which  the  sunset  breaks 
Its  last  red  arrow," — 

to  this  dear  friend  Whittier  dedicates  his  "  Bay  of 
Seven  Islands." 

For  the  Quaker  writer  Mary  Howitt  Mr.  Whittier 
had  a  hearty  regard.  Her  Autobiography  records 
the  reception  from  him,  in  1874,  through  Mrs.  A.  D. 
T.  Whitney,  of  verbal  greetings  and  a  letter  of  friend 
ship.  To  William  Howitt,  author  of  the  fine 
Whittieresque  lyric  of  freedom, — 

"  The  land  for  me,  the  land  for  me, 
Where  every  living  soul  is  free," — 

our  poet  does  not  seem  to  have  been  so  much  at 
tracted.  Both  the  Howitts  were  ardent  in  the  anti- 
slavery  cause,  and  we  are  told  of  Mary's  good  old 
mother  knitting  "  a  quantity  of  nice  things  for  the 
anti-slavery  bazaar  in  Boston."  Whittier,  no  doubt, 
would  say  "  Amen  "  to  this  effusion  of  Kit  North's 
shepherd,  in  the  "  Noctes "  :  "  The  twa  married 
Hooitts  I  love  just  excessively,  sir.  What  they  write 
canna  fail  o'  bein'  poetry,  even  the  most  middlin'  o'  't. 
For  it  's  aye  wi'  them  the  ebullition  o'  their  ain  feel 
ing  and  their  ain  fancy  ;  and,  whenever  that  's  the 
case,  a  bonny  word  or  twa  will  drap  itsel'  intil  ilka 
stanzy,  and  a  sweet  stanzy  or  twa  intil  ilka  pome, 
and  sae  they  touch,  and  sae  they  sune  win  a  body's 
heart." 

John  Bright,  a  Quaker,  was  naturally  an  admirer  of 
the  Quaker  poet  of  America.  Writing  in  1884,  he 


204  JOHN    G.    WHITTIER. 

said  :  "  In  the  poem  of  '  Snovv-Bound  '  there  are  lines 
on  the  death  of  the  poet's  sister  which  have  nothing 
superior  to  them  in  beauty  and  pathos  in  our  lan 
guage.  I  have  read  them  often,  with  always  increas 
ing  admiration.  I  have  suffered  from  the  loss  of 
those  near  and  dear  to  me,  and  I  can  apply  the  lines 
to  my  own  case  and  feel  as  if  they  were  written  for 
me.  The  '  Eternal  Goodness  '  is  another  poem  which 
is  worth  a  crowd  of  sermons  which  are  spoken  from 
the  pulpits  of  our  sects  and  churches,  and  which  I  do 
not  wish  to  undervalue." 

Mr.  Bright  told  James  Grant  Wilson  that  he  val 
ued  Whittier's  poems  more  than  those  of  any  other 
poet  of  the  present  century.  When  Garrison  and 
John  Bright  were  one  sunny  afternoon  standing  in 
the  Library  of  the  House  of  Parliament  conversing, 
and  watching  the  busy  scene  on  the  Thames,  Mr. 
Bright  repeated  "  with  exquisite  feeling  "  Whittier's 
apostrophe  to  his  sister  Elizabeth  above  mentioned.1 

I  have  mentioned  Dom  Pedro's  love  of  Whittier. 
He  had  translated  some  of  his  poems  into  Portuguese, 
and,  when  he  was  in  America  in  1876,  he  paid  Mr. 
Whittier  a  visit  of  affection.  Later,  on  hearing  that 
slavery  was  at  last  abolished  in  Brazil,  Mr.  Whittier 
cabled  these  words  to  the  Emperor,  who  was  then 
lying  ill  at  Milan  :  "  With  thanks  to  God,  who  has 
blessed  your  generous  efforts,  I  congratulate  you  on 
the  peaceful  abolition  of  slavery  in  Brazil." 

Bayard  Taylor,  who  was  a  Quaker  by  descent,  on 
his  father's  side,  was  a  welcome  guest  in  Amesbury. 
There  was  in  Bayard  Taylor's  hearty,  robust  phy- 


1  Life  of  Garrison,  iv.  279, 


FRIENDSHIPS    AND    OPINIONS.  205 

sique  just  that  complement  of  Whittier's  invalid, 
feminine  nature  needed  by  the  latter  in  a  friend. 
Taylor's  letters  seem  to  me  the  most  vivacious  and 
interesting  in  our  published  literature,  and  only  to  be 
matched  for  verve  and  snap  (so  far  as  my  epistolary 
experience  enables  me  to  judge)  by  those  of  his 
friend  E.  C.  Stedman  or  by  William  Douglas  O'Con 
nor  of  Washington.  Taylor  is  the  traveler  de 
scribed  in  the  "  Tent  on  the  Beach  "  ("  one  whose 
Arab  face  was  tanned  by  tropic  sun,"  etc.). 

Writing  in  July,  1850,  Mr.  Taylor  says  :  "  Friday 
morning,  early,  Lowell  and  I  started  for  Amesbury, 
which  we  reached  in  a  terrible  northeaster.  What  a 
capital  time  we  had  with  Whittier,  in  his  nook  of  a 
study,  with  the  rain  pouring  on  the  roof  and  the  wind 
howling  at  the  door  !  "  '  On  the  day  of  the  publica 
tion  of  Taylor's  "  Faust,"  Mr.  and  Mrs.  James  T. 
Fields  gave  a  dinner  in  the  translator's  honor.  Whit- 
tier  wrote  to  Mr.  Fields :  "  I  take  up  the  lamentation 
of  Falstaff :  'There  are  but  few  of  us  good  fellows 
left,  and  one  of  them  is  not  fat,  but  lean,  and  grows 
old.'  It  would  be  pleasant  to  sit  down  with  thy 
special  guest,  my  dear  friend  Taylor,  and  with  others 
whose  poetical  shoestrings  I  hold  myself  quite  un 
worthy  to  untie, — the  wisest  of  philosophers  and 
most  genial  of  men  from  Concord  ;  the  architect  of 
the  only  noteworthy  *  Cathedral'  in  the  new  world  ; 
and  his  neighbor,  the  far-traveled  explorer  of  Purga 
tory  and  Hell,  and  the  scarcely  less  dreary  Paradise 
of  the  great  Italian  dreamer."  The  last  parting  of 
these  two  friends,  Whittier  and  Taylor,  took  place 


1  Life  and  Letters  of  Bayard  Taylor,  i.  176. 


206  JOHN    G.    WHITTIER. 

under  the  elms  of  Boston  Common,  after  a  visit  they 
had  just  been  making  at  the  house  of  Richard  H. 
Dana. 

Whittier  has  a  general  poem  on  Taylor  : — 

"  'And  where  now,  Bayard,  will  thy  footsteps  tend  ?  ' 
My  sister  asked  our  guest  one  winter's  day. 
Smiling,  he  answered  in  the  Friends'  sweet  way 
Common  to  both  :  '  Wherever  thou  shalt  send  ! 
What  wouldst  thou  have  me  see  for  thee  ?  '     She  laughed, 
Her  dark  eyes  dancing  in  the  wood-fire's  glow  : 
'  Loffoden  isles,  the  Kilpis,  and  the  low, 
Unsetting  sun  on  Finmark's  fishing-craft.' 
'  All  these  and  more  I  soon  shall  see  for  thee ! ' 
He  answered,  cheerily  ;  and  he  kept  his  pledge." 

One  of  Mr.  Whittier's  earliest  friendships  was  that 
between  himself  and  Edwin  P.  Whipple.  He  wrote 
in  1886  of  Whipple  :  "  I  cannot  now  dwell  upon  his 
authorship  while  thinking  of  him  as  the  beloved  mem 
ber  of  a  literary  circle  now,  alas  !  sadly  broken.  I  recall 
the  wise,  genial  companion  and  faithful  friend  of 
nearly  half  a  century,  the  memory  of  whose  words 
and  acts  of  kindness  moistens  my  eyes  as  I  write." 
And  again,  in  another  place  :  "  To  him  more  than  to 
any  other  person  I  was  indebted  for  public  recogni 
tion  as  one  worthy  of  a  place  in  American  literature, 
at  a  time  when  it  required  a  great  deal  of  courage 
to  urge  such  a  claim  for  a  proscribed  Abolitionist. 
Although  younger  than  I,  he  had  gained  the  reputa 
tion  of  a  brilliant  essayist,  and  was  regarded  as  the 
highest  American  authority  in  criticism."  Mr.  Whit- 
tier  refers  to  the  critical  review  written  by  Whipple  in 
1848  or  earlier.  Whipple,  in  this  paper,  quotes  the 
old  saying  of  John  Dennis,  of  Queen  Anne's  time, 


FRIENDSHIPS   AND   OPINIONS.  2O ; 

that  genius  is  "  a  furious  joy  and  pride  of  soul  on  the 
conception  of  an  extraordinary  hint,"  and  keenly 
notes  that  Whittier  has  this  "furious  joy  and  pride  of 
soul  "  even  when  the  hints  are  not  extraordinary.  He 
observes  that  his  vehement  sensibility  does  not  allow 
his  inventive  faculties  fully  to  complete  what  they 
have  begun.  "  Whittier  has  the  soul  of  a  great  poet, 
and  we  should  not  be  surprised  if  he  attained  the 
hight  of  excellence  in  his  art."  1 

We  have  seen  how  close  was  the  friendship  between 
William  Lloyd  Garrison  and  Greenleaf  Whittier. 
Mr.  Garrison  had  an  extremely  amiable,  cheerful 
nature,  and  was  domestic  in  his  tastes.  The  same  is 
true  of  Whittier.  In  their  younger  years,  especially, 
was  the  bond  that  knit  them  together  strong.  In  the 
work  of  reform  they  were  at  that  time  like  two  heads 
under  one  hat.  For  seven  years  at  least,  they  toiled 
shoulder  to  shoulder  in  the  anti-slavery  harness. 
Garrison  was  often  at  Whittier's  home,  and  Whittier 
more  than  once  shared  the  bowl  of  bread  and  milk 
of  the  editor  of  the  "  Liberator,"  in  the  dingy  little 
printing-room  in  Boston.  They  ate  at  the  same  table 
when  both  were  young  men  editing  Boston  papers  ; 
together  they  drafted  the  Magna  Charta  of  the 
nation's  anti-slavery  society,  worked  often  in  the 
same  conventions,  wrote  poems  in  each  other's  praise, 
and  together  shared  the  plaudits  of  the  world  on  the 
overthrow  of  slavery. 

Whittier's  many  letters  to  Lydia  Maria  Child,  some 
of  which  have  been  published,  sufficiently  indicate 
the  sympathy  that  bound  these  two  together.  Dear 


1  Whipple's  Essays,  i. 


208  JOHN    G.    WHITTIER. 

Mrs.  Child,  with  her  beautiful  sweet  face  under  that 
funny,  old-fashioned  bonnet  that  made  the  children 
snicker, — what  a  pleasant  life  she  led  with  her  brave, 
though  semi-invalid  husband  ! — they  two  alone  in 
Wayland  in  their  little  home  on  the  quiet  by-road 
overlooking  broad  green  meadows. 

James  T.  Fields  was  the  constitutional  complement 
of  Whittier,  had  the  strong,  healthy,  rich  nature  in 
which  such  temperaments  as  Whittier's  love  to  bask. 
Fields,  with  his  full,  jet-black  beard,  and  with 
chest  thrown  out,  reciting  "  Douglas,  Douglas,  tender 
and  true  !  "  is  a  memory  in  my  mind  only  matched 
by  the  equally  powerful  recital  of  Byron's  "  Senna 
cherib  "  by  Bayard  Taylor.  One  can  imagine  how 
Fields  and  Taylor  must  have  rivaled  Demosthenes 
in  spouting  poetry  along  the  Salisbury  sands  in  that 
episode  of  the  Tent  on  the  Beach.  In  the  poem, 
Fields  is — 

"  A  lettered  magnate,  lording  o'er 

An  ever-widening  realm  of  books. 
In  him  brain-currents,  near  and  far, 
Converged  as  in  a  Leyden  jar ; 
The  old,  dead  authors  thronged  him  round  about, 
And  Elzevir's  gray  ghosts  from  leathern  graves  looked  out. 

"  Pleasant  it  was  to  roam  about 
The  lettered  world  as  he  had  done, 
And  see  the  lords  of  song  without 
Their  singing-robes  and  garlands  on." 

It  seems  a  regrettable  thing  that  Mr.  Whittier 
should  have  felt  impelled  to  destroy  a  large  mass  of 
his  correspondence  with  friends.  He  might  have 
appointed  a  literary  executor  in  whose  judgment  he 


FRIENDSHIPS    AND    OPINIONS.  209 

had  perfect  confidence.  No  literature  is  so  valuable 
as  contemporary  memoirs  and  letters.  There  is  such 
a  thing  as  being  morbidly  sensitive  as  to  the  privacy 
of  a  letter.  Ruskin  has  said  that  he  never  wrote  a 
Better  in  his  life  that  all  the  world  are  not  welcome 
to  read  if  they  will.  Mr.  Whittier's  act  and  the 
motives  that  led  to  it  are  spoken  of  by  him  in  the 
following  note  published  in  the  "  Brooklyn  Magazine  " 
in  the  spring  of  1886: — 

"  The  report  concerning  the  burning  of  my  letters 
is  only  true  so  far  as  this:  Some  years  ago  I  destroyed 
a  large  collection  of  letters  I  had  received,  not  from 
any  regard  to  my  own  reputation,  but  from  the  fear 
that  to  leave  them  liable  to  publicity  might  be  in 
jurious  or  unpleasant  to  the  writers  or  their,  friends. 
They  covered  much  of  the  anti-slavery  period  and  the 
War  of  the  Rebellion,  and  many  of  them  I  knew  were 
strictly  private  and  confidential.  I  was  not  able  at 
the  time  to  look  over  the  mass,  and  thought  it 
safest  to  make  a  bonfire  of  all.  I  have  always 
regarded  a  private  and  confidential  letter  as  sacred, 
and  its  publicity  in  any  shape  a  shameful  breach  of 
trust,  unless  authorized  by  its  writer.  I  only  wish 
my  own  letters  to  thousands  of  correspondents  may 
be  as  carefully  disposed  of." 

Undoubtedly  the  distinguished  friends,  from  the 
"world's  people,"  who  have  maintained  constant 
intimacy  with  Whittier  have  been  of  great  benefit  to 
him  in  getting  him  partially  out  of  the  rut  of  nar 
row  sectarianism.  Whittier  is  not  only  an  Orthodox 
Quaker  by  birth,  but  from  heart-felt  conviction. 
He  is  a  constant  attendant  at  Quaker  meetings, 
14 


2IO  JOHN    G.    WHITTIER. 

submits  to  the  authority  of  the  Quaker  discipline, 
and  for  Sunday  wear  has  an  Orthodox  Quaker  coat 
made  in  Philadelphia.  His  Westminster  Abbey  is  a 
little  white  wooden  box  of  a  church,  in  the  fields, 
capable  of  holding  forty  persons.  In  winter  the 
congregation  sometimes  dwindles  to  seven  or  three 
members.  His  soul  here  communes  with  God  more 
closely,  he  finds,  than  when  distracted  by  the  fuss 
and  talk  and  music  of  the  great  churches,  or  even 
by  the  shows  of  nature.  This  is  all  well,  and  even 
beautiful.  For  the  Quaker  doctrine  of  the  Inner 
Light  there  is  a  sound  psychological  basis.  Philo 
sophical  and  religious  thinkers  of  all  times  have 
found  silence  indispensable  to  the  mind's  best  work 
ing.  But  it  is  the  thousand  and  one  narrowing, 
unmanly,  old-woman  rules  and  discipline  of  the 
Quakers  that  Whittier  needed  friends  to  free  him 
from.  And,  as  it  is,  he  has  never  succeeded  in  per 
manently  throwing  off  the  dead  weight  he  came  into 
life  handicapped  with.  Indeed,  when  you  consider 
Quakerism  on  its  weak  side, — its  phlegmatic  utilita 
rianism,  its  icy  formalism,  selfishness,  reprobation  of 
music,  poetry,  painting,  the  theatre,  the  dance,  hunt 
ing,  fine  manners,  rich  dress,  nearly  all  that  makes 
life  noble  and  distinguished, — you  wonder  that 
Whittier  ever  produced  any  great  poetry  at  all. 
Fiery  lyrics  by  a  Quaker  are  like  passion  flowers  in 
Nova  Zembla ;  't  is  a  miracle  that  such  bitter  cold 
should  yield  such  tropic  blooms.  It  is  largely  due 
to  Quakerism  that  Philadelphia  has  never  produced 
a  genius.  Of  Mr.  Whittier  we  must  affirm  that  the  very 
depth  and  intensity  of  his  religious  nature  have  been 
an  injury  to  his  work  as  an  artist.  Always  in  pro- 


FRIENDSHIPS   AND     OPINIONS.  211 

portion  to  the  strength  and  tenderness  of  the  religious 
feeling  of  the  artist  is  the  weakness  of  the  art.  Great 
art  is  a  depicting  of  man's  noble  deeds  and  emotions; 
but  the  artist  must  himself  have  passed  through  the 
stage  of  distracting  emotion  when  he  gives  his 
ideas  final  shape.  Religious  emotion  is  especially 
apt  to  becloud  and  agitate  the  mind,  unhinges  it, 
blurs  the  impressions  (as  of  a  sensitized  chemical 
plate)  that  fall  upon  it.  While  many  of  Mr.  Whit- 
tier's  religious  hymns  are  of  exquisite  beauty,  and 
are  found  in  large  numbers  in  the  hymn-books,  it 
is  still  true  that  the  vast  mass  of  his  verse  is  in 
jured  by  weak  religious  didacticism.  "  Prythee, 
Senor  Curedo,  let  God's  finger  alone.  Very  worthy 
men  are  apt  to  snatch  at  it  upon  too  light  occa 
sions:  they  would  stop  their  tobacco-pipes  with  it." 

It  is  only  the  Quakeristic  atmosphere  in  which  he 
has  grown  up,  the  unconscious  influences  of  his 
secluded  life,  that  have  crippled  his  genius.  His 
creed  is  a  broad  one;  his  religious  sympathy,  or  toler 
ance,  is  as  wide  as  Christianity;  his  gonfalon  has 
always  fluttered  in  the  van  of  all  progressive  and 
liberal  movements.  To  the  Principal  of  the  Friends' 
School  in  Providence  he  wrote  in  1884:  "Though  I 
am  a  Quaker  by  birthright  and  sincere  convictions, 
I  am  no  sectarian  in  the  strict  sense  of  the  term.  My 
sympathies  are  with  the  Broad  Church  of  Humanity." 
Elsewhere  he  has  said,  "  I  have  never  felt  like  quar 
reling  with  Orthodox  or  Unitarians  who  were  willing 
to  pull  with  me,  side  by  side,  at  the  rope  of  Reform." 
In  the  "  Liberator"  of  Sept.  22,  1837,  he  wrote:  "In 
the  anti-slavery  cause  I  have  cheerfully  held  counsel 
with  Catholic  and  Protestant,  Unitarian  and  Trini- 


212  JOHN    G.    WHITTIER. 

tarian,  Jew  and  Christian;  and  have  done  so,  without, 
on  the  one  hand,  sacrificing  my  own  principles,  and, 
on  the  other,  without  doing  violence  to  the  feel 
ings  and  consciences  of  others.  I  have,  it  is  true, 
heard  and  read  many  things  at  lectures  and  conven 
tions,  and  in  anti-slavery  publications,  which,  as  a 
member  of  the  Society  of  Friends,  I  could  not  approve 
of,  and  which  have  been  as  unwelcome  to  me  as  any 
thing  in  the  '  Liberator '  can  possibly  have  been  to 
the  signers  of  the  Protest.1  But  I  have  not  felt  free 
to  denounce  my  friends  of  other  denominations,  and 
withdraw  from  them,  on  that  account. 

In  1889  he  said  in  the  "  Jewish  Messenger,"  "I 
do  n't  know  what  it  is  to  be  a  Jew,  but  I  know  what 
it  is  to  be  a  Christian,  who  has  no  quarrel  with  others 
about  their  creed,  and  can  love,  respect,  and  honor  a 
Jew  who  honestly  believes  in  the  faith  of  his  fathers, 
and  who  obeys  the  two  great  commandments  '  Love 
to  God  and  Love  to  Man.'  " 

Mr.  Whittier's  confession  of  faith  is  perhaps  most 
fully  set  down  in  two  public  letters  of  his  published 
in  1870.'  Here  are  a  few  key  sentences  which  breathe 
a  pretty  liberal  spirit: — 

"  A  very  large  proportion  of  my  dearest  personal 
friends  are  outside  of  our  communion;  and  I  have 
learned  with  John  Woolman  to  find  '  no  narrowness 
respecting  sects  and  opinions.'  But,  after  a  kindly 
and  candid  survey  of  them  all,  I  turn  to  my  own 
Society,  thankful  to  the  Divine  Providence  which 


1  Reference  is  had  to  a  disagreement  in  the  ranks  of  the  Aboli 
tionists  at  the  time  of  a  certain  "  Clerical  Appeal." 
9  Included  in  his  prose  works,  edition  1889. 


FRIENDSHIPS   AND     OPINIONS.  213 

placed  me  where  I  am;  and  with  an  unshaken  faith 
in  the  one  distinctive  doctrine  of  Quakerism, — the 
Light  within,  the  immanence  of  the  Divine  Spirit  in 
Christianity.  ...  I  am  not  blind  to  the  short 
comings  of  Friends.  I  know  how  much  we  have  lost 
by  narrowness  and  coldness  and  inactivity,  the  over 
estimate  of  external  observances,  the  neglect  of  our 
own  proper  work  while  acting  as  a  conscience-keeper 
for  others."  The  remedy  is  "  not  in  setting  the  letter 
above  the  spirit;  not  in  substituting  type  and  sym 
bol,  and  Oriental  figure  and  hyperbole,  for  the  simple 
truths  they  were  intended  to  represent;  not  in  schools 
of  theology;  not  in  much  speaking  and  noise  and 
vehemence;  nor  in  vain  attempts  to  make  the  'plain 
language '  of  Quakerism  utter  the  Shibboleth  of 
man-made  creeds:  but  in  heeding  more  closely  the 
Inward  Guide  and  Teacher  ;  in  faith  in  Christ,  not 
merely  in  His  historical  manifestation  of  the  Divine 
Love  to  humanity,  but  in  His  living  presence  in  the 
hearts  open  to  receive  Him;  in  love  for  Him  mani 
fested  in  denial  of  self,  in  charity  and  love  to  our 
neighbor.  .  .  . 

"  Quakerism,  in  the  light  of  its  great  original 
truth,  is  '  exceedingly  broad.'  As  interpreted  by 
Penn  and  Barclay,  it  is  the  most  liberal  and  catholic 
of  faiths.  .  .  . 

"  They  fail  to  read  clearly  the  signs  of  the  times 
who  do  not  see  that  the  hour  is  coming  when,  under 
the  searching  eye  of  philosophy  and  the  terrible 
analysis  of  science,  the  letter  and  the  outward  evi 
dence  will  not  altogether  avail  us;  when  the  surest  de 
pendence  must  be  upon  the  Light  of  Christ  within." 

One  cannot  but  admire  in  Whittier  his  stanch  loy- 


214  JOHN    G.    WHITTIER. 

alty  to  the  faith  of  his  fathers,  in  respect  of  confess 
ing  it  before  men.  He  has  never  been  ashamed  of 
his  religion.  His  attitude  recalls  an  anecdote  told  of 
Thomas  Ellwood.  As  he  was  one  day  coming  out  of 
meeting,  among  a  hostile  crowd,  some  one  called  out, 
"Do  n't  stone  that  man,  he  is  not  a  Quaker,  see  his 
fur  cap!"  Ellwood  instantly  snatched  his  cap  from 
his  head  and  dashed  it  to  the  ground,  saying,  "I  am 
a  Quaker!" 

A  writer  in  the  Chicago  "  Inter-Ocean  "  in  the 
autumn  of  1880  reports  Whittier  as  having  said  in 
conversation  that  he  believed  in  an  absolute  religion 
above  all  written  revelations  :  all  revelations  presup 
pose  and  appeal  to  it.  "  There  is  an  afr^]^  ha  sis 
of  truth  in-a-lt-  minds,  which  is  the  same  ;  and  in  all 
difficulties  growing  out  of  the  relations  of  old  relig 
ious  ideas  to  new  facts  we  shall  have  enough  of 
absolute  truth  to  carry  us  through.  .  .  .  Authority 
as, a  ground  and  element  of  religion  must  whoTljTdis- 
appear  .  .  .  The  claims  for  Christ  must  be  based 
on  the  perfect  character  of  His  life  and  teachings,  and 
not  on  His  authority."  For  a  right  nurture  of  the 
religious  nature  the  sensibilities  must  be  brought 
more  into  cultivation  and  active  influence.  "  After 
early  childhood,  the  cultivation  of  the  sensibilities 
begins  to  give  place  to  intellectual  training,  and  soon 
ceases  entirely,  and  the  young  mind  is  left  to  train 
its  own  sensibilities.  It  is  also  taught  to  smother 
and  conceal  the  impressions  and  sensibilities,  and 
eventually  it  hardens  into  a  spiritual  indifference." 

On  the  doctrine  of  Predestination  and  Endless 
Punishment  he  has  written  as  follows  to  the  Univer- 
salists  :  "  I  recognize  the  importance  of  the  revolt  of 


iiUENDSHIPS    AND     OPINIONS.  215 

your  religious  society  from  the  awful  dogma  of  pre 
destined  happiness  for  the  few  and  damnation  for  the 
many,  though  in  the  outset  that  revolt  brought  with 
it  something  of  the  old  fatalistic  belief  in  the  arbi 
trary  will  and  power  of  the  Almighty.  Assuming 
that  a  favored  few  can  be  saved  by  a  divine  decree 
irrespective  of  any  merit  on  their  part,  it  was  logical 
at  least  to  suppose  that  all  might  be  saved  in  the 
same  way.  If  I  mistake  not,  this  view  has  been 
greatly  modified  by  the  consideration  that  the 
natural  circumstances  of  death  cannot  make  any 
real  change  of  character  ;  that  no  one  can  be  com 
pelled  to  be  good  or  evil;  that  freedom  of  choice  be 
longs  to  both  worlds,  and  that  sin  is,  by  its  very 
nature,  inseparable  from  suffering.  I  am  not  accus 
tomed  to  attach  very  great  importance  to  speculative 
opinions,  and  am  not  disposed  to  quarrel  with  any 
creed  which  avoids  the  danger,  on  the  one  hand,  of 
attributing  implacable  vengeance  and  cruelty  to  the 
heavenly  Father,  and  on  the  other  of  underrating  the 
'exceeding  sinfulness  of  sin'  and  its  baleful  conse 
quences.  Slowly  but  surely  the  dreadful  burden  of 
the  old  belief  in  the  predetermined  eternity  of  evil  is 
being  lifted  from  the  heart  of  humanity,  and  the 
goodness  of  God,  which  leadeth  to  repentance,  is  tak 
ing  the  place  of  the  infinite  scorn  which  made  love 
well-nigh  impossible."1 

In  his  poem  "The  Minister's  Daughter "  will  be 
found  a  strain  of  thought  similar  to  this. 

A  contributor  to  the  Syracuse  "Journal" — in  the 
summer  of  '82 — writes  that  in  a  conversation  with 


1  The  Critic,  June  5,  '86. 


2l6  JOHN    G.    WHITTIER. 

Whittier  the  talk  drifted  into  the  topic  of  death  and 
the  nearness  or  distance  of  the  departed  to  different 
individuals. 

" '  I  have  never  felt  the  influence  you  describe,' 
said  the  poet;  'no  one  who  has  passed  away  seems 
near  to  me  now.  Life  is  such  a  mystery  that  I  do 
not  ask  to  penetrate  the  secrets  of  eternity;  but  I  can 
imagine  that  you  and  others  are  conscious  of  the 
unseen  presence  of  those  whom  you  have  loved  and 
lost.' 

"  '  And  who  are  eternally  happy,'  I  added. 

"'  Well,  I  am  not  certain  about  that,'  he  continued, 
with  an  expression  of  abstraction.  '  I  believe  that 
we  may  have  troubles  there,  as  well  as  here  ;  if  not, 
the  contrast  would  not  be  so  sweet.  The  difference 
will  be  that  we  shall  be  better  enabled  to  bear  them. 
Heaven  is  a  place  of  harmony.  Everything  will  be 
harmonized  there.' 

"'Then  you  do  not  admire  a  state  of  complete 
bliss  ? ' 

"'  No,  why  should  I,  any  more  than  I  like  clams  at 
high  tide,'  1  and,  after  joining  me  in  a  moment  of 
merriment,  he  turned  suddenly  and  said, — 

"  '  When  are  you  the  happiest  ?  ' 

"  *  You  will  laugh,  Mr.  Whittier,  but  it  is  when  I 
hear  the  first  note  of  a  robin  in  the  early  spring 
time.' 

"  *  No,  I  shall  not  laugh;  for  I  understand  that 
pleasure,  too.' 


1  Those  who  have  never  lived  by  the  sea  may  need  to  be  told 
that  clams  are  only  obtainable  when  the  water  has  receded,  at  low 
tide. 


FRIENDSHIPS    AND     OPINIONS.  2  17 

"  Then  I  described  the  meadows  of  Central  Park, 
which  he  said  was  all  new  to  him,  and  he  had  not 
supposed  any  one  would  go  there  to  hear  a  robin's 
song.  A  merry  twinkle  came  in  his  eyes  as  he 
added, — *  I  like  Boston  Common  because  they  hung 
some  Quakers  there  once  upon  a  time.'  " 

Here  are  some  cheerful  thoughts  of  Whittier's 
from  a  talk  on  Communism  and  the  Shakers  :  1 — 

"  You  young  men  will  have  your  trials,  too,"  he 
said,  "  and  your  conflicts  will  be  with  subtler  diffi 
culties  than  ours." 

"  Is  Professor  Goldwin  Smith's  *  Moral  Interreg 
num  '  probable?"  asked  his  questioner. 

"  I  think  there  is  some  prospect  of  it,"  said  Whit- 
tier.  "  The  breaking  of  old  forms  has  begun.  I  have 
no  fears  for  the  result."  The  communism  of  the 
French  Revolution  is  impossible  with  us. 

"  The  most  successful  form  of  communism,"  said 
he,  humorously,  u  is  the  Shaker  Community.  They 
have  broken  down  the  family,  and  have  common 
property;  but  they  also  have  industry,  frugality, 
purity,  and  temperance.  They  have  the  spirit  of 
thrift  and  cleanliness.  But  even  in  this  form  com 
munism  is  not  a  good  thing.  It  would  extinguish 
the  race  in  time. 

"  The  Shakers  have  always  been  very  careful  about 
running  after  strange  notions;  but  they  publish  a 
paper  now  called  '  The  Shaker  Manifesto,' — a  rather 
smart  title, — in  which  they  give  their  views  of  things  in 


1  From   the   New   York  "  Tribune,"  Oct.    4,    1880  (the  Inter- 
Ocean  "  conversation  above  referred  to). 


2l8  JOHN    G.    WHITTIER. 

general.  They  send  it  to  me,  and  I  take  some  interest 
in  looking  at  it,  and  seeing  what  they  are  thinking 
about.  They  have  a  column  of  poetry  in  it  that  is 
interesting  reading.  They  have  a  machine  for  mak 
ing  poetry  as  well  as  everything  else;  and  they  com 
pose  tunes  of  their  own  for  these  songs.  I  do  not 
think  the  world  will  steal  their  music.  It  is  the  most 
singular  music  I  have  ever  heard." 

Quakerism,  in  virtue  of  its  doctrine  of  Inward 
Illumination,  is  the  sworn  foe  of  caste  and  class 
privilege.  Every  man  and  woman  may  receive  the 
honor  of  inspiration  from  above.  Hence  perfect 
equality  among  classes  of  men,  and — the  unavoidable 
corollary — the  co-equality  of  the  sexes.  Whittier 
favored  "  woman's  rights "  from  the  start,  though 
during  the  anti-slavery  struggle  he  deemed  it  unwise 
to  keep  introducing  the  subject  into  the  meetings  of 
the  Abolitionists.  It  was  irrelevant,  and  hurt  the 
cause.  "  Let  other  reforms  stand  on  their  own  in 
trinsic  merit,"  he  said.  "  The  Abolition  car  moves 
heavily  enough  already,  without  dragging  after  it 
everything  which  our  thousand  and  one  reformers 
may  choose  to  hitch  to  it."  l  In  1880  his  words  are 
reported  as  follows: 2 — 

u  Woman  suffrage  I  regard  as  an  inevitable  thing, 
and  a  good  thing.  Women  in  public  life  will  bring 
it  up  more  than  it  will  bring  them  down.  There  will 
be  considerable  floundering  about  before  society  will 
be  completely  adapted  to  the  change;  but,  after  it 
shall  be  fairly  accomplished  and  in  working  order, 


1  Liberator,  Oct.  27,  '37. 

*  New  York  Tribune,  Oct.  4,  1880. 


FRIENDSHIPS    AND     OPINIONS.  219 

the  work  of  society  will  go  on  without  any  deteriora 
tion,  and  with  a  gain  of  purity  in  motives  and  unself 
ishness  of  law-makers  and  administrators.  I  fear  its 
effects  in  large  cities,  where  bad  women  will  come 
forward.  Women  are  so  intense  that  bad  women  will 
be  worse  in  public  life  than  bad  men.  But  the  dif 
ficulty  is  in  the  nature  of  the  city.  Yet  I  do  not  be 
lieve  that  woman's  work  will  be  done  mainly  by 
voting.  Disinterested  lives  are  the  things  needed  in 
society,  and  women  will  do  most  in  showing  the 
practicability  and  value  of  such  lives  in  all  forms  of 
work." 

Similarly  he  speaks  in  a  published  letter:  J — 
"  I  frankly  confess  that  I  am  not  able  to  foresee  all 
the  consequences  of  the  great  social  and  political 
change  proposed.  But  of  this  I  am  at  least  sure:  it  is 
always  safe  to  do  right,  and  the  truest  expediency  is 
simple  justice.  .  .  .  I  have  no  fear  that  man  will  be 
less  manly  or  woman  less  womanly  when  they  meet  on 
terms  of  equality  before  the  law.  On  the  other  hand, 
I  do  not  see  that  the  exercise  of  the  ballot  by  woman 
will  prove  a  remedy  for  all  the  evils  of  which  she 
justly  complains.  It  is  her  right  as  truly  as  mine; 
and,  when  she  asks  for  it,  it  is  something  less  than 
manhood  to  withhold  it.  But  unsupported  by  a 
more  practical  education,  higher  aims,  and  a  deeper 
sense  of  the  responsibilities  of  life  and  duty,  it  is  not 
likely  to  prove  a  blessing  in  her  hands  any  more  than 
in  man's." 


1  Prose  Works  (edition  1889),  iii.  228. 


CHAPTER  V. 

"TELLING  THE  BEES,"  AND  OTHER  BALLADS. 

"  1  knew  a  very  wise  man  that  believed  that  if  a  man  were  per 
mitted  to  make  all  the  ballads,  he  need  not  care  who  should  make  the 
laws,  of  a  nation" — FLETCHER  OF  SALTOUN. 

INASMUCH  as  I  have  elsewhere  published  a  critical 
estimate  of  Mr.  Whittier's  poems,  pointing  out  the 
gradual  growth  of  his  art  away  from  homiletical,  or 
didactic,  work  until  it  culminated  in  the  beautiful 
ballads  of  his  riper  years,  I  do  not  purpose  to  go  over 
that  ground  again  in  this  volume,  but  will  content 
myself  with  quoting  (by  the  tacit  permission  of  its 
writer)  the  following  weighty  and  condensed  bit  of 
criticism  from  an  eminent  fellow-poet  and  contem 
porary  of  Mr.  Whittier,  and  will  then  pass  on  to 
annotate  and  illustrate  some  of  his  most  fascinating 
stories  in  verse:  "  Whittier's  poetry  stands  for  moral 
ity  (not  its  ensemble,  or  in  any  true  philosophic  or 
Hegelian  sense,  but)  as  filter'd  through  the  positive 
Puritanical  and  Quaker  filters;  is  very  valuable  as  a 
genuine  utterance;  with  many  capital  local  and  Yan 
kee  and  genre  bits — all  unmistakably  hued  with 
zealous  partisan  anti-slavery  coloring.  Then  thegenre 
bits  are  all  precious;  all  help.  Whittier  is  rather  a 
grand  figure — pretty  lean  and  ascetic — no  Greek — 
also  not  composite  and  universal  enough  (does  n't 

220 


"TELLING  THE  BEES,"  AND  OTHER  BALLADS.      221 

wish  to  be,  does  n't  try  to  be)  for  ideal  American 
ism."1 

If  the  Essex  poet  is  not  composite  and  universal,  he 
is  at  least  very  near  the  heart  of  the  people,  and  never 
more  so  than  in.  his  best  ballads, — such  as  "  Telling 
the  Bees,"  "  Maud  Muller,"  "  Barbara  Frietchie," 
'•  Skipper  Ireson,"  "  The  Witch's  Daughter,"  and 
"The  Witch  of  Wenham."  These  musical  arrows, 
shot  as  with  the  miraculous  bow  of  Rama,  are  un 
doubtedly  feathered  for  a  far  flight  into  the  future. 
And  a  chief  reason  for  their  perpetuity  lies  in  the 
fact  that  they  are  free  from  the  disfigurement  (from 
an  artistic  point  of  view)  of  so  many  of  Whittier's  de 
scriptive  pieces;  namely,  the  moral  at  the  end.  A 
direct  homiletical  application  of  a  story,  instead  of 
pointing  it,  weakens  its  point:  it  is  the  button  on  the 
sword.  A  poem  with  a  moral  reminds  one  of  Ed 
ward  Lear's  "  scroobious  snake,  who  always  wore  a 
hat  on  his  head  for  fear  he  should  bite  anybody." 

The  determination  of  Whittier  upon  the  moral  is 
complete  and  radical.  The  roots,  trunk,  branches, 
and  blossoms  of  his  life  are  steeped  in  the  sense  of 
duty.  The  obligation  to  high  daring  and  heroic  do- 
ing  rests  upon  his  soul  like  a  solemn  sanction.  He 
has  received  a  commission  from  on  high.  Will  the 
Commander-in-chief  approve  of  his  sitting  down  to 
write  pretty  ballads  in  the  heat  and  burden  of  the 
day?  he  keeps  anxiously  asking  himself.  To  an 


1  The  poet  of  Camden,  letter  to  the  author,  Oct.  10,  '8g.  It  is  a 
significant  and  historically  fitting  circumstance  that  the  three  chief 
democrats  of  the  New  World — Whitman,  Lincoln,  and  Whittier 
— should  all  be,  remotely  or  immediately,  of  Quaker  stock. 


222  JOHN    G.    WHITTIER, 

edition  of  his  poems  published  in  1849  he  prefixes 
these  lines  of  Coleridge: — 

"  Was  it  right, 

While  my  unnumbered  brethren  toiled  and  bled, 
That  I  should  dream  away  th'  intrusted  hours 
On  rose-leaf  beds,  pampering  the  coward  heart 
With  feelings  all  too  delicate  for  use  ?  " 

In  the  dedication  of  one  of  his  prose  works  to  his 
sister  Elizabeth  he  is  still  seen  to  be  debating  the 
question  in  his  mind,  but  leans  to  the  opinion  that 
it  is  all  right  : — 

"  And  knowing  how  my  life  hath  been 
A  weary  work  of  tongue  and  pen, 
A  long,  harsh  strife  with  strong-willed  men, 

Thou  wilt  not  chide  my  turning 
To  con,  at  times,  an  idle  rhyme, 
To  pluck  a  flower  from  childhood's  clime, 
Or  listen,  at  Life's  noon-day  chime, 
For  the  sweet  bells  of  Morning  !  " 

Had  he  consulted  his  choice,  he  would  not  have  entered 
into  the  political  field  at  all,  but  would  have  loved  all 
his  life  to  drift  idly  up  and  down  among  the  drowsy 
Venetian  canals  of  legendary  lore.  As  he  says  at  the 
close  of  "  The  Panorama  ": — 

"  Oh,  not  of  choice,  for  themes  of  public  wrong 
I  leave  the  green  and  pleasant  paths  of  song. 

*  ***** 

More  dear  to  me  some  song  of  private  worth, — 
Some  homely  idyl  of  my  native  North." 

The  quaint  and   touching   European  custom,  de- 


"  TELLING  THE  BEES,"  AND  OTHER  BALLADS.         223 

scribed  in  "  Telling  the  Bees,"  of  informing  the  occu 
pants  of  the  hives  of  a  death  in  the  family,  and  drap 
ing  the  hives  with  crape  in  order  that  the  swarms  may 
not  take  their  departure,  has  been  transplanted  to  our 
country,  and  is  still  observed  by  isolated  individuals 
here  and  there  among  the  country  folk,  especially  in 
New  York  State.  It  is  a  pretty  idea,  and  a  very 
natural  one,  that  those  marvelous  little  waxen-thighed 
flower-riflers,  those  winged  geometers  and  potters 
whose  whirling  wheel  turns  out  such  cunning  vases 
of  scented  sweets,  should  have  the  power  of  compre 
hending  all  that  men  do  and  say.  It  is  among  the 
peasantry  of  Europe,  of  course,  that  the  idea  is  most 
prevalent.  Some  of  them  think  that  the  bees'  sense 
of  smell,  which  is  known  to  be  very  acute,  is  offended 
by  the  presence  of  a  dead  body.  At  any  rate,  it  is 
imperative  to  inform  them  of  the  death  and  invite 
them  to  the  funeral.  Some  drape  the  hives  with 
shreds  of  black,  and  some  do  not  ;  some  also  place 
on  the  alighting-boards  of  the  hives  fragments  of  the 
funeral  cake  or  bread,  soaked  in  beer,  wine,  or  honey. 
Bees  also  expect  to  be  invited  to  a  wedding,  and  to 
have  their  hives  decorated  with  wedding  favors.  In 
Buckinghamshire,  England,  on  the  occasion  of  a 
death,  the  nurse  of  the  family,  or  a  servant,  goes  to 
all  the  beehives  in  the  garden  and  taps  gently  three 
times,  saying  each  time  in  a  low  voice,  "  Little  brownie, 
little  brownie,  your  master's  dead,"  whereupon  the 
bees  begin  to  hum,  showing  that  they  understand 
and  are  willing  to  remain.  In  Derbyshire  and  Wilts 
the  custom  is  a  common  one.  Three  taps  are  made 
on  the  hive  with  the  house-key,  and  the  informant 
says,  "  Bees,  bees,  your  master  [or  mistress]  is  dead, 


224  JOHN    G.    WHITTIER. 

and   you   must  work   for ,"  naming  the   heir  or 

successor.  A  piece  of  black  crape  is  then  fastened  to 
the  hive.  An  old  farmer's  wife  in  Cheshire,  England, 
had  from  fifteen  to  twenty  hives  of  bees. 

"  Well,"  said  a  friend  one  day  to  her,  "  how  have 
the  bees  done  this  year?" 

"  Ah!  "  she  replied,  "  they  are  all  gone.  When  our 
Harriet  lost  her  second  child,  a  many  of  them  died. 
You  see  they  were  under  the  window  where  it  lay; 
and  then  when  Will  died,  last  spring,  the  rest  all 
died,  too.  I  always  say  that  bees  are  very  curious 
things." 

In  some  parts  of  France,  on  the  day  of  Purification 
women  read  the  gospel  to  the  bees,  and  it  is  believed 
that,  if  children  or  grown  people  swear  within  ear 
shot  of  them,  they  will  swarm  out  and  attack  them. 
The  belief  is  alluded  to  by  Beranger  in  one  of  his 
chansons.  In  Westphalia,  when  the  death  of  the  mas 
ter  of  the  household  occurs,  the  servant  puts  on  a 
Bienenhelm,  or  bee-bonnet,  and,  going  out  into  the 
garden  to  the  hives,  stoops  down  and  says  in  a  low 
voice,  "The  mistress  sends  her  best  compliments,  and 
the  master  is  dead."  In  some  parts  of  Germany  they 
say, — 

"  Bienchen,  unser  Herr  ist  todt, 
Verlass  mich  nicht  in  meiner  Noth." 

"Little  bee,  our  master  is  dead.  Forsake  me  not  in 
my  distress."1 


1  See  Farrer's  "  Primitive  Manners  and  Customs,"  p.  281;  Eng 
lish  "Notes  and  Queries"  (consult  the  indexes);  "American 
Notes  and  Queries,"  i.  312,  and  ii.  328,  374;  "  Scribner's  Month 
ly,"  May,  1879  (article  by  Burroughs);  "Open  Court,"  Sept.  12, 
1889  (article  by  L.  J.  Vance);  and  Brand's  "  Popular  Antiquities." 


"  TELLING  THE  BEES,"  AND  OTHER  BALLADS.        225 

In  regard  to  the  ballad  "  Maud  Muller,"  Mr.  Whit- 
tier  tells  us  that  the  name  Muller  he  took  from  the 
descendants  of  a  Hessian  deserter  in  the  Revolution 
ary  War.  "  The  poem,"  he  says,  "  has  no  real  foun 
dation  in  fact,  though  a  hint  of  it  may  have  been 
found  in  recalling  an  incident,  trivial  in  itself,  of  a 
journey  on  the  picturesque  Maine  seaboard  with  my 
sister  some  years  before  it  was  written.  We  had 
stopped  to  rest  our  tired  horse  under  the  shade  of  an 
apple-tree,  and  refresh  Kim  with  water  from  a  little 
brook  which  rippled  through  the  stone  wall  across 
the  road.  A  very  beautiful  young  girl  in  scantiest 
summer  attire  was  at  work  in  the  hay-field,  and,  as 
we  talked  with  her,  we  noticed  that  she  strove  to 
hide  her  bare  feet  by  raking  hay  over  them,  blush 
ing  as  she  did  so  through  the  tan  of  her  cheek  and 
neck."1  "Maud  Muller"  was  first  published  in 
the  "  National  Era,"  December,  1854.  It  is  a  poem 
sweeter  and  purer  in  sentiment  than  Browning's 
"Statue  and  the  Bust";  the  root-idea  of  this  poem 
also  is  embodied  in  the  phrase,  "  It  might  have  been." 
The  name,  being  German,  should  have  been  written 
Muller.  The  English  author  Walter  Hamilton  says 
in  volume  five  of  his  "Parodies"  that  Mr.  Whittier 
pronounces  it  as  if  written  Miiller.  Mr.  Hamilton 
adds  a  remark  of  the  poet:  "If  I  had  had  any  idea 
that  the  plaguey  thing  would  have  been  so  liked,  I 
would  have  taken  more  pains  with  it." 

The   story  of   Skipper    Ireson  a    was    first   told  to 


1  Note  to  the  library  edition  of  1888  of  Whittier's  poems. 

2  The  sources  of  information  for  this  ballad  are  as  follows:  His 
tory  of  Marblehead,  by  Roads,  Jr.,  p.  233;  article  by  John  Chad- 

15 


226  JOHN    G.    WHITTIER. 

Whittier  by  a  schoolmate,  a  young  girl  from  Marble- 
head,  when  he  was  attending  the  Academy  in  Haver- 
hill.  He  says  he  remembers  thinking  it  over  while 
walking  to  and  fro  under  Hugh  Tallant's  sycamores, 
which  formed  a  leafy  archway  beside  the  river. 
Thirty  years  later  he  wrote  and  published  the  ballad. 
For  doing  so,  he  has  excited  the  unappeasable  wrath 
of  the  good  Marbleheaders,  especially  the  women, 
who  in  reality  had  nothing  to  do  with  the  "  torring" 
of  the  skipper,  and  do  not  like  their  portrait  as 
sketched  by  the  balladist.  As  for  the  "  men-folks," 
they  have  been  laboring  for  years  to  convince  the 
world  that  it  was  n't  Skipper  Ireson  who  was  to 
blame  for  leaving  the  shipwrecked  sailors  to  perish: 
it  was  his  men.  But,  as  these  were  also  Marbleheaders, 
one  cannot  see  how  the  reputation  of  the  town  would 
be  in  any  way  bettered  by  shifting  the  odium  onto 
the  shoulders  of  Ireson's  crew. 

The  refrain  of  "  Skipper  Ireson "  was  originally 
written  without  the  use  of  the  queer  local  pronuncia 
tion,  but  was  afterwards  changed  to  its  present  form 
at  the  suggestion  of  Mr.  Francis  H.  Underwood,  then 
editor  of  the  "  Atlantic  Monthly,"  in  which  the  poem 
first  appeared.  The  event  chronicled  in  the  ballad  took 
place  in  1807  ;  and,  when  Mr.  Whittier  took  up  the 
story  for  literary  purposes,  it  had  been  talked  about 
and  sung  about  in  Marblehead  for  a  generation,  and 


wick  in  "  Harper's  Monthly,"  July,  1874,  and  one  by  George  M. 
White  in  the  same  for  February,  1883;  Underwood's  "  Whittier," 
p.  219;  Boston  "  Evening  Transcript,"  Sept.  23  and  Oct.  3,  1889; 
and  a  note  by  Mr.  Whittier  in  the  library  edition  (1888)  of  his 
poems.  The  poem  first  appeared  anonymously  in  the  "Atlantic 
Monthly  "  in  1857. 


"TELLING  THE  BEES,"  AND  OTHER  BALLADS.      227 

was  regarded  by  him  as  a  legend.  The  original 
doggerel,  as  sung  by  the  boys  of  Marblehead,  is  said 
to  have  run  in  this  wise  : — 

"  Old  Flud  Oirson,  for  his  horrd  hort, 
Was  torred  and  feathered  and  corried  in  a  cort ; 
He  left  foive  men  upon  a  wrack, 
And  was  torred  and  feathered  all  over  his  back." 

By  1837  this  had  got  changed  and  amplified  (accord 
ing  to  the  Gloucester  "  Telegraph  "  of  that  year)  into — 

"  Old  Flood  Ireson,  for  his  hord  hort, 
Was  torr'd  and  feathered  and  corried  in  a  cort ! 
Old  Flood  Ireson,  for  leaving  the  wreck, 
Was  torr'd  and  feathered  all  up  to  his  neck ! 
Old  Flood  Ireson,  for  his  great  sin, 
Was  torr'd  and  feathered  all  up  to  his  chin  ! 
Old  Flood  Ireson,  for  his  bad  behavior, 
Was  torr'd  and  feathered  and  corried  to  Salem ! ' 

In  the  early  part  of  this  century  the  Marblehead 
vessels  usually  made  three  fishing  trips  in  a  season  to 
the  Grand  Banks,  from  March  to  December.  A  crew 
generally  consisted  of  the  skipper,  five  men,  and  a 
cook.  In  the  autumn  of  1807  a  capable  and  intelligent 
young  Marbleheader  of  twenty-three  years  of  age, 
named  Captain  Benjamin  Ireson  (Flood,  or  Flud,  or 
Floyd,  was  a  nickname),  was  placed  by  her  owner  in 
charge  of  the  schooner  "  Betty  "  and  despatched  to 
the  Grand  Banks.  As  he  was  homeward  bound  on 
his  third  trip,  he  found  himself  one  midnight  with 
Cape  Cod  under  his  lee,  and  a  high  sea  running  and 
a  strong  wind  blowing.  The  situation  was  not  a 
pleasant  one  to  the  sailors,  who  were  anxious  to  get 
home.  Presently  the  lumber-schooner  "  Active,"  of 


228  JOHN    G.    WHITTIER. 

Portland,  was  descried  in  a  sinking  condition,  lying 
on  her  beam  ends,  and  the  crew  were  clinging  to  the 
rigging-  As  to  what  took  place  next  there  is  consid 
erable  uncertainty.  The  defenders  of  Captain  Ireson 
say  that  he  ordered  the  crew  to  lie  by  the  wreck  till 
"doming"  (dawn),  and  then  turned  in  for  a  little 
sleep.  Another  account  says  that  he  and  one  other 
were  for  immediately  rendering  assistance  ;  but  the 
rest  of  the  crew  (being  part-owners  in  the  cargo) 
refused  to  do  so.  The  crew  themselves,  when  they 
returned,  said  the  captain  deserved  all  the  blame.  It 
is  pretty  clear  that  they  were  all  alike  guilty.  As 
for  the  skipper,  the  damning  fact  is  not  denied  that 
he  never  by  a  word  repelled  the  charge  of  having 
abandoned  the  ship.  The  "  Betty  "  arrived  in  Mar- 
blehead  October  30,  and  the  very  next  day  who 
should  come  sailing  into  the  port,  aboard  the  sloop 
"  Swallow,"  but  the  captain  of  the  "  Active."  He  had 
been  rescued,  with  three  of  the  passengers,  by  Mr. 
Hardy  of  Truro,  in  a  whale-boat  ;  but  four  of  his 
crew  had  gone  down  to  Davy  Jones's  locker. 

The  story  of  the  abandonment  gradually  spread 
through  the  town.  But  no  steps  were  taken  at  first, 
although  the  wrath  and  excitement  grew  more  intense 
(it  being  now  the  idle  season  with  the  fishermen). 
The  fare  of  fish  was  unloaded  and  dried  on  the  flakes 
(or  platforms  of  sticks),  the  "  wessel  "  laid  up  for  the 
winter,  and  "  the  v'yage  sittl'd." 

For  some  days  previous  to  the  tarring  and  feather 
ing,  a  restless,  unsettled  spirit  was  manifested  by  the 
more  indignant  ones,  and  finally  a  deputation  waited 
upon  young  Captain  Ireson,  as  he  was  walking  to 
and  fro  on  Pitman's  Wharf,  to  inquire  into  the  truth 


"  TELLING  THE  BEES,"  AND  OTHER  BALLADS.         229 

or  falsity  of  the  accusation  against  him.  He  is  said 
to  have  been  a  very  taciturn  man,  and  to  their  inter 
rogatories  returned  no  answer,  maintaining  a  dogged 
silence  to  the  last.  This  seemed  to  them  proof  posi 
tive  of  his  guilt. 

Accordingly,  the  Freemasons  held  secret  meetings 
to  discuss  the  matter.  Their  plan  of  action  was  soon 
matured,  and  on  the  following  day  the  conspirators 
suddenly  sprang  upon  him,  threw  him  into  a  con 
demned  dory  lying  on  the  wharf,  where  he  was  held 
by  one  Morse  until  his  hands  were  tied  behind  his 
back.  He  made  no  resistance.  A  bucket  of  tar  had 
been  prepared,  and  the  crowd,  to  the  number  of  a 
hundred,  laid  hold  of  the  long  rope  tied  to  the  boat's 
painter  and  started  on  a  run  through  the  town,  halt 
ing  at  the  corner  of  Darling  Street.  They  had 
received  a  gift  of  two  feather  pillows  as  they  came 
along,  from  the  wife  of  Captain  David  Bruce,1  and, 
proceeding  to  the  outskirts  of  the  village,  they 
applied  the  tar  and  feathers,  rubbing  it  in  well,  and 
dabbing  two  huge  lumps  of  tar  on  each  temple, 
wherein  were  stuck  goose  feathers.  The  march  was 
then  resumed  toward  Salem,  and,  when  the  bottom 
of  the  dory  came  out,  the  skipper  was  placed  in  a 
cart.  The  Salem  authorities  refused  to  allow  the 
crowd  to  enter  that  town,  whereupon  they  returned 
to  Marblehead,  and  unbound  their  prisoner,  who 
said,  "I  thank  you  for  my  ride,  gentlemen;  but  you 
will  live  to  regret  it."  This  was  the  only  word  he 
spoke  during  the  proceedings.  He  did  not  return  to 


1  From  this  circumstance,  the  mythical  story  of  the  women  being 
engaged  in  the  matter  possibly  took  its  rise. 


230  JOHN    G.    WHITTIER. 

his  home  until  night  set  in,  reaching  it  by  a  round 
about  way. 

One  of  his  contemporaries,  on  being  asked  what 
effect  the  tarring  had  on  Ireson,  answered,  "  Cowed 
him  to  death,  cowed  him  to  death."  He  never  went 
skipper  but  once  more,  and  that  was  the  next  year. 
Thereafter  he  earned  his  living  by  dory-fishing  in  the 
bay,  selling  his  daily  catch  in  a  wheelbarrow  trun 
dled  from  door  to  door.  He  appeared  to  become 
reckless  of  his  life.  On  one  occasion — the  story  goes 
— he  landed  near  the  house  of  one  of  his  old  perse 
cutors,  and  deliberately  made  fast  a  noose  to  a  large 
log,  which  he  then  towed  away  into  deep  water,  hurl 
ing  bad  names  at  the  owner,  who  called  out, — 

"  Stop,  Ireson,  or  I'll  shoot  you!  " 

To  which  he  replied, — 

"  Fire  away,  old  man!     You  can't  hit  me!  " 

Another  old  salt  tells  of  having  once  picked  Ireson 
up  far  out  at  sea,  where  he  had  been  driven  in  his 
dory  by  a  storm.  His  savior  took  him  into  Glouces 
ter.  He  had  not  a  cent  with  which  to  buy  a  meal 
or  to  get  back  home.  A  benevolent  individual  gave 
him  his  supper,  kept  him  over  night,  and  next  day 
took  up  a  subscription  to  pay  his  fare  to  Marblehead. 
When  Ireson  had  gone,  he  informed  the  subscribers 
who  he  was,  whereupon  they  swore,  in  great  wrath, 
that,  if  they  had  known  it,  they  would  not  have  given 
him  a  penny. 

When  old  age  and  blindness  at  last  overtook  him, 
and  his  last  fishing-trip  had  been  made,  his  old  dory 
was  hauled  up  into  the  lane  by  his  house,  and  there 
rotted  away.  Whittier's  ballad  appeared  in  1856,  a 
year  or  two  after  his  death. 


"TELLING  THE  BEES,"  AND  OTHER  BALLADS.      231 

As  has  been  stated,  the  "  women  of  Marblehead  " 
have  a  very  poor  opinion  of  the  Quaker  poet.  In  the 
autumn  of  1889  some  young  ladies  from  Salem  went 
over  to  Marblehead,  on  a  boating  trip,  and,  while 
there,  went  in  search  of  Floyd  Ireson's  house.  As 
they  were  inquiring  their  way,  a  woman  thrust  her 
head  out  of  the  window,  exclaiming: — 

"  Want  to  find  Flood  Ireson's  house,  do  ye?  Well, 
you  won't  find  out  here,  I  can't  tell  ye!  Flood 
Ireson  was  every  bit  as  good  as  you  be;  and  you 
treatin'  his  house  's  if  't  was  a  curiosity!  You  better 
go  right  away  from  here!  " 

The  young  ladies  declined  to  take  the  advice,  and 
were  not  molested.  But  shortly  after  another  party 
on  the  same  errand  were  pelted  with  mud  by  street 
gamins. 

Mr.  Whittier,  who  has  been  pained  by  the  way  the 
ballad  has  been  received,  has  written  a  note  to 
Samuel  Roads,  Jr.,  the  historian  of  Marblehead  (and 
has  taken  the  pains  to  prefix  it  to  the  ballad  as  pub 
lished  in  the  latest  edition  of  his  poems),  in  which 
he  says, — "  My  verse  was  founded  solely  on  a  frag 
ment  of  a  rhyme  which  I  heard  from  one  of  my  early 
schoolmates,  a  native  of  Marblehead.  I  supposed 
the  story  to  which  it  referred  dated  back  at  least  a 
century.  I  knew  nothing  of  the  participators,  and 
the  narrative  of  the  ballad  was  pure  fancy.  I  am 
glad  for  the  sake  of  truth  and  justice  that  the  real 
facts  are  given  in  thy  book  [Mr.  Roads  follows  the 
popular  feeling  of  the  town,  and  attempts  to  exoner 
ate  the  skipper].  I  certainly  would  not  knowingly 
do  injustice  to  any  one,  dead  or  living." 

Mr.  Charles  T.  Brooks,  the  genial  Unitarian  divine 


232  JOHN    G.    WHITTIER. 

of  Newport,  and  translator  of  Richter,  wrote  some 
compassionate  verses  about  "  Old  Flud,"  the  best  of 
which  are  given  below.  One  cannot  but  feel,  how 
ever,  that  his  pity  is  just  a  little  misplaced  (like  a 
good  deal  of  Unitarian  philanthropy),  and  that  those 
four  poor  sailors,  drowned  through  the  crime  of  the 
skipper,  would  be  fitter  subjects  for  the  poet's  sym 
pathies  : — 

"  Old  Flood  Ireson  !  all  too  long 
Have  jeer  and  jibe  and  ribald  song 
Done  thy  memory  cruel  wrong. 

"  Old  Flood  Ireson  sleeps  in  his  grave; 
Howls  of  a  mad  mob,  worse  than  the  wave, 
Now  no  more  in  his  ear  shall  rave. 

"  Gone  is  the  pack  and  gone  the  prey, 
Yet  old  Flood  Ireson's  ghost  to-day 
Is  hunted  still  down  Time's  highway. 

'•  Old  wife  Fame,  with  a  fish-horn's  blare 
Hooting  and  tooting  the  same  old  air, 
Drags  him  along  the  old  thoroughfare. 

"  Shall  Heaven  look  on  and  not  take  part 
With  the  poor  old  man  and  his  fluttering  heart, 
Tarred  and  feathered  and  carried  in  a  cart  ?  " 

"  Barbara   Frietchie  "  '   is  a  ballad  that  cannot  be 
read  by  an  American  without  deep  emotion.     It  has 


1  The  name  is  properly  spelled  Fritchie,  judging  from  the  in 
scriptions  on  the  tombstones  of  Barbara  and  her  husband  in 
Frederick. 


"TELLING  THE  BEES,"  AND  OTHER  BALLADS.      233 

been  twice  translated  into  German,1  and  was  highly 
valued  by  the  ex-Emperor  of  Brazil,  Dom  Pedro,  who, 
shortly  after  its  appearance,  read  it  repeatedly  in  Eng 
lish  in  the  presence  of  members  of  his  Court,  and  then 
brought  it  to  the  notice  of  the  Princesses  and  their 
husbands, — the  Count  d'Eu  and  the  Prince  of  Saxe- 
Coburg-Gotha, — as  one  of  the  rarest  specimens  of 
poetry  in  any  literature  in  its  portrayal  of  the  heroic 
patriotism  of  woman. 

Not  long  after  the  publication  of  the  ballad,  in 
1863,  while  sympathy  for  the  South  was  still  strong 
and  determined  in  Maryland,  the  Secession  relatives 
of  Dame  Barbara,  not  relishing  such  extreme  North 
ern  patriotism  as  hers,  united  with  the  disloyal  citi 
zens  of  Frederick  in  spreading  reports  of  the  unau- 
thenticity  of  the  incident  pictured  by  the  poet ;  and  it 
is  surprising  to  see  with  what  ingenuity  they  have 
wrenched  the  facts,  so  as  to  make  them  fit  their  ver 
sion  of  the  affair.  A  dozen  and  one  accounts  have 
been  put  forth,  and  each  is  inconsistent  in  one  or 
more  points  with  the  others. 

Now,  Mr.  Whittier  wrote  to  a  friend  in  1872  that 
a  nephew  of  Barbara  had  visited  him  and  had  con 
firmed  the  authenticity  of  the  incident2  To  the 
editors  of  the  "  Century  "  he  also  wrote,  in  the  autumn 
of  1886:— 

"  My  attention  has  been  called  to  an  article  in  the 


1  The  free  rendering  of  the  late  Hon.  Theodore  S.  Fay,  In  his 
work,  "  Die  Sklavenmacht,"  is  not  unspirited, — 
"  Frisch  vom  Septembermorgen  umhaucht, 
Aus  goldenen  Aehrenvvogen  taucht, 
Umgriint  von  den  Hiigeln  Maryland's, 
Der  Kirchthurm  Frederick's  im  Sonnenglanz,"  etc. 

8  Potter's  American  Monthly,  1875,  p.  416. 


234  JOHN    G.    WHITTIER. 

June  number  of  the  '  Century,'  in  which  the  writer, 
referring  to  the  poem  on  Barbara  Frietchie,  says: 
*  The  story  will  perhaps  live,  as  Mr.  Whittier  has 
boasted,  until  it  gets  beyond  the  reach  of  correction.' 
Those  who  know  me  will  bear  witness  that  I  am  not 
in  the  habit  of  boasting  of  anything  whatever,  least 
of  all  of  congratulating  myself  upon  a  doubtful  state 
ment  outliving  the  possibility  of  correction.  I  cer 
tainly  made  no  'boast'  of  the  kind  imputed  to  me. 
The  poem  of  Barbara  Frietchie  was  written  in  good 
faith.  The  story  was  no  invention  of  mine.  It  came 
to  me  from  sources  which  I  regarded  as  entirely 
reliable;  it  had  been  published  in  newspapers,  and 
had  gained  public  credence  in  Washington  and  Mary 
land  before  my  poem  was  written.  I  had  no  reason 
to  doubt  its  accuracy  then,  and  I  am  still  constrained 
to  believe  that  it  had  foundation  in  fact.  If  I  thought 
otherwise,  I  should  not  hesitate  to  express  it.  I  have 
no  pride  of  authorship  to  interfere  with  my  allegiance 
to  truth." 

The  writer  referred  to  by  the  poet  is  Colonel  Henry 
Kyd  Douglas  of  the  Confederate  army,  who,  in  his 
article  on  General  Jackson  in  the  "Century,"  June, 
1886,  p.  287,  goes  out  of  his  way  to  affront  Mr.  Whit- 
tier.  He  says  no  such  incident  ever  happened,  since 
he  was  with  General  Jackson  at  the  time.  He  shows 
how  much  he  knows  about  the  matter  by  adding  con 
temptuously  that  there  was  such  an  old  woman  as 
Barbara  Frietchie,  but  that  she  was  bed-ridden.  The 
falsity  of  the  latter  part  of  this  affirmation  will  appear 
as  we  unfold  the  true  account.  It  is  very  clear  from 
the  tone  of  this  Confederate  colonel's  remarks  that 
such  stanzas  in  the  ballad  as— 


"  TELLING  THE  BEES,"  AND  OTHER  BALLADS.         235 

"  '  Shoot,  if  you  must,  this  old  gray  head, 

But  spare  your  country's  flag,'  she  said," 
must  have  pricked  hard  the  consciences  of  the  South 
erners.  T  was  a  home  thrust, — especially  to  soldiers, 
who  are  sensitive  to  the  approval  or  the  disapproval 
of  woman,  and  who  are  placed  by  the  poet  in  the 
light  of  naughty  boys  being  spanked  by  their  mamma, 
Dame  Columbia  (typified,  one  may  say,  in  old  Barbara 
Frietchie). 

Now,  the  poet  Whittier  has  been  considerably  dis 
turbed  by  the  rumpus  kicked  up  by  the  Southerners 
over  this  ballad,  and,  wishing  to  be  obliging,  has  pre 
fixed  a  note  to  it  in  the  recent  library  edition  of  his 
poems,  in  which  he  makes  unnecessary  concessions, 
as  I  think  I  shall  show.  He  says:  "The  story  was 
probably  incorrect  in  some  of  its  details.  It  is  admit 
ted  by  all  that  Barbara  Frietchie  was  no  myth,  but 
a  worthy  and  highly  esteemed  gentlewoman,  intensely 
loyal,  and  a  hater  of  the  Slavery  Rebellion,  holding 
her  Union  flag  sacred  and  keeping  it  with  her  Bible; 
that  when  the  Confederates  halted  before  her  house, 
and  entered  her  dooryard,  she  denounced  them  in 
vigorous  language,  shook  her  cane  in  their  faces,  and 
drove  them  out;  and,  when  General  Burnside's  troops 
followed  close  upon  Jackson's,  she  waved  her  flag  and 
cheered  them.  It  is  stated  that  May  Quantrell,  a 
brave  and  loyal  lady  in  another  part  of  the  city,  did 
wave  her  flag  in  sight  of  the  Confederates.  It  is 
possible  that  there  has  been  a  blending  of  the  two 
incidents." 

Mrs.  Mary  A.  Quantrell  was  a  pretty,  black-haired 
woman  of  thirty-two  at  that  time.  She  stood  at  her 
gate  with  her  daughter  "  Virgie,"  and  both  courage- 


236  JOHN    G.    WHITTIER. 

ously  waved  Union  flags  in  the  face  of  the  Confed 
erates.  As  the  little  girl  was  flourishing  a  small  flag, 
an  officer  cut  the  stick  in  two  with  his  sword.  She 
picked  up  another,  and  that,  too,  was  cut  out  of  her 
hand,  the  men  exclaiming,  "  Throw  down  that  flag!  " 
Mrs.  Quantrell  waved  a  larger  flag,  and  was  not 
molested.  Some  of  the  officers,  with  characteristic 
Southern  politeness,  raised  their  hats,  saying,  "  To 
you,  madam,  not  your  flag."1 

Reports  of  Barbara  Frietchie's  patriotism  and  valor 
were  carried  to  Washington  by  citizens  of  Frederick. 
It  was  Mrs.  E.  D.  E.  N.  Southworth,  of  Washington, 
who  first  sent  an  account  of  her  to  Whittier,  enclos 
ing  a  newspaper  slip  about  her  spirited  treatment  of 
the  Confederates  under  Jackson,  as  described  by  Mr. 
Whittier  above.  Mr.  Whittier  was  afterwards  as 
sured  by  Miss  Dorothea  L.  Dix,  who  had  been  caring 
for  the  wounded  in  a  hospital  in  Frederick,  that  the 
story  was  true,  virtually  as  he  has  sung  it.  Later  he 
was  presented  with  a  cane  made  from  the  wood  of 
Barbara's  house. 

About  the  year  1881,  Mrs.  Caroline  H.  Dall  went  to 
Frederick  and  made  an  exhaustive  study  of  the 
whole  matter.3  The  result  of  her  investigation  was 
a  conviction  that  the  poem  has  an  historic  basis.  The 
deniers  of  its  authenticity  affirm  that  Jackson  was 
not  riding  at  the  head  of  his  troops  at  all.  But  Mrs. 
Dall  learned  that  he  had  only  ridden  hastily  back  for 


1  Article  by  Joseph  Walker  in  Baltimore   "  Herald,"  Sept.   29, 
1884;  quoted  in  "  American  Notes  and  Queries,"  Oct.  6,  1888. 

2  See   the    Boston    "  Evening    Transcript,"    June,  1888,  Query 
12,827. 


"TELLING  THE  BEES,"  AND  OTHER  BALLADS.      237 

a  few  moments  to  leave  a  note  at  the  door  of  a  friend 
with  whom  he  intended  to  pass  the  Sunday  follow 
ing,  and  overtook  the  column  just  as  the  guns  were 
pointed  at  Barbara's  flag.  In  continuation  of  their 
subterfuges  and  quibbling  with  the  literal  text  of  the 
ballad,  the  Southerners  affirm  that  Jackson's  army 
did  not  enter  Frederick  at  all.  This  is  literally  true, 
but  practically  false.  The  army  did  not  pass  through 
the  town,  but  did  pass  within  fifteen  or  twenty  feet 
of  one  of  its  boundary  lines.  Frederick  town  is 
separated  from  Frederick  County  by  Carroll  Creek, 
a  very  narrow  stream  (about  the  width  of  an  ordinary 
street),  and  the  road  traversed  by  Jackson's  soldiers 
lay  along  the  farther  side  of  that  creek.  But  Barbara 
Frietchie's  house  overhung  the  stream.  Her  husband 
was  a  glover,  and  the  house  had  been  so  constructed 
that  the  trimmings  of  the  shop  might  be  swept  into 
the  stream  through  a  trap  door.  There  was  but  one 
window  on  the  side  of  the  house  next  to  the  creek, 
and  that  was  in  the  attic.  It  was  here  that  she  waved 
the  flag,  and  in  the  photographs  sold  in  the  town  it 
is  always  represented  as  fluttering  from  this  window. 
The  little  flag  is  about  12  x  18  inches,  has  but  thirty- 
four  stars,  is  of  silk,  and  is  attached  to  a  staff  some 
three  feet  long.  It  is  still  preserved  by  her  niece, 
Mrs.  Handschue.  This  good  lady  affirms  that  the 
incident  is  apocryphal,  for  she  was  in  the  house  and 
saw  nothing  of  it.  But  Mrs.  Dall  said  she  learned 
on  inquiry  that  the  niece  was  at  the  time  hidden 
under  the  bed,  saying  her  prayers  in  German  !  Mrs. 
Handschue's  daughter,  Mrs.  Abbott,  writes  that, 
when  later  the  Union  troops  under  Burnside  marched 
by  the  front  door,  the  old  lady  stood  on  her  porch, 


238  JOHN    G.    WHITTIER. 

leaning  on  her  cane,  and  waving  her  silken  flag  of 
the  Union.  She  was  then  over  ninety-six.  The  men 
cheered  her  again  and  again.  Some  even  ran  into 
the  yard  to  shake  hands,  exclaiming:  "  God  bless 
you,  old  lady!  May  you  live  long!  "  On  the  oppo 
site  side  of  the  narrow  street  stood  a  white-haired 
German  pastor,  over  a  hundred  years  old,  and  it  was 
said  that  the  tears  of  joy  streamed  down  the  cheeks 
of  both  as  they  waved  their  flags. 

We  are  told  also  that  on  other  occasions,  if,  on  go 
ing  out,  she  found  rebel  soldiers  encumbering  her 
door  steps,  she  would  strike  them  right  and  left,  cry 
ing,  "  Off,  off,  you  lousy  Rebels  !  "  ' 

Let  it  be  noted  that  General  Jackson  passed 
through  Frederick,  en  route  to  capture  Harper's 
Ferry,  on  Sept.  6,  1862,  and  that  on  December  18,  three 
months  later,  Barbara  Frietchie  died,  and  was  buried 
in  the  cemetery  of  the  German  Reformed  Church  in 
Frederick. a  Whittier's  ballad  did  not  appear  until 
October,  1863,  when  it  was  published  in  the  "Atlan 
tic  Monthly,"  nearly  a  year  after  Barbara  had  passed 
away.  Mr.  Joseph  Walker,  her  son-in-law,  claims  to 
know  all  about  the  matter,  and  speaking,  probably 
from  hearsay  or  remembrance,  twenty-two  years 
after  the  event,  says  Barbara  never  claimed  the  credit 
of  the  General  Jackson  incident  nor  even  alluded  to 
it.  Perhaps  not.  But  why  should  she?  It  would  not 
have  seemed  to  her  anything  very  extraordinary  to 
do.  She  may  have  said  nothing  to  the  Confederate 


1  Sunday  Afternoon  Magazine,  April  8. 

2  The     Century  Company's  "  War  Book,"  ii.  618  ;   article  by 
George  O.  Seilheimer. 


"  TELLING  THE  BEES,"  AND  OTHER  BALLADS.         239 

soldiers,  and  there  may  possibly  have  been  no  firing 
at  the  flag, — or,  if  there  was,  she  would  have  deemed 
it  prudent  not  to  mention  it  to  her  terrified  niece. 
Her  well-known  patriotism  makes  it  nearly  certain 
that  she  would  not  have  allowed  a  Confederate  army 
to  pass  under  her  window  without  rebuking  it  (as 
she  did  in  the  case  mentioned  by  Mr.  Whittier). 
Very  well.  The  incident  of  the  flag  happened,  and 
was  forgotten.  Gradually,  as  we  know,  her  reputa 
tion  for  patriotism  spread;  and  then  some  citizen  or 
one  of  Jackson's  soldiers  recalled  that  little  scene  at 
the  attic  window;  the  account  reached  Washington, 
and  later  was  sent  on  to  Mr.  Whittier.  In  the  hurly- 
burly  of  war  it  may  well  have  happened  that  her  own 
niece  remained  in  ignorance  that  the  flag-story  was 
circulating  elsewhere.  Then  in  three  months  the  old 
lady  was  beyond  the  reach  of  questions. 

In  further  confirmation  of  the  incident  Mrs.  Dall 
states  ("  Unitarian  Review,"  September,  1878)  that 
she  had  received  a  letter  from  an  Englishman  of 
education,  a  member  of  the  Shakespeare  Society,  who 
was  a  soldier  in  the  Union  Army  and  member  of 
Burnside's  Ninth  Army  Corps.  He  states  that  on 
September  18,  1862,  twelve  days  after  the  entrance  of 
Jackson  into  Frederick,  he  passed  through  the  town 
with  an  ambulance  of  wounded  men.  Stopping  for 
refreshments  at  a  restaurant,  they  were  told  by  a 
pretty  Irish  girl  the  story  of  the  firing  on  the  flag. 
The  girl  was  a  Confederate  sympathizer,  and  ex 
claimed,  "  Bully  for  Jackson  !  "  This  shows  that  the 
story  was  common  talk  twelve  days  after  the  event. 
This  Englishman  went  South  after  the  war,  and  once 
read  the  ballad  aloud  at  a  public  meeting.  Persons 


240  JOHN    G.    WHITTIER. 

present  testified  to  their  personal  knowledge  of  the 
countermanding  by  Jackson  of  the  order  to  fire.  In 
1868  a  Union  officer,  one  of  the  convalescent  patients 
in  the  Frederick  hospital  at  the  time,  told  Mrs.  Dall 
that  he  himself  saw  the  shot  fired  at  the  flag. 

One  day,  shortly  before  her  death,  says  Mrs.  Dall, 
two  friends  called  on  Barbara  Frietchie  to  pay  her 
some  money  owed  her.  They  found  her  sitting  by 
the  window  knitting.  She  wore  a  black  satin  dress 
and  a  snow-white  cap;  a  white  kerchief  was  pinned 
over  her  shoulders.  When  the  money  had  been  paid, 
a  pen  was  put  into  her  hand,  and  she  was  shown 
where  to  make  her  mark.  She  pushed  back  her  gold 
spectacles,  and  with  a  smile  drew  her  pen  through  the 
name  that  had  been  written  for  her,  writing  it  her 
self  with  a  steady  hand,  saying  to  her  friend,  "  Honey, 
I  wrote  my  name  before  you  were  born." 

There  is  another  ballad  of  Whittier's  founded  on 
an  incident  the  authenticity  of  which  is  denied  by 
certain  authorities.  I  refer  to  the  poem  "  Brown  of 
Ossawatomie,"  and  especially  to  the  second  stanza, 
in  which  are  embodied  the  subject  and  raison  d'etre  of 
the  whole  piece:— 

"John  Brown  of  Ossawatomie,  they  led  him  out  to  die ; 
And  lo !  a  poor  slave-mother  with  her  little  child  pressed 

nigh. 
Then  the  bold  blue  eye  grew  tender,  and  the  old  harsh  face 

grew  mild, 
As  he  stooped  between  the  jeering  ranks    and  kissed  the 

negro's  child  !  " 

Mr.  Thomas  Hovenden,  of  Philadelphia,  has  put 
this  scene  into  a  powerful  realistic  painting,  contain- 


"  TELLING  THE  BEES,"  AND  OTHER  BALLADS.         241 

ing  twenty-two  figures,  eight  or  nine  of  them  care 
fully  finished  studies.  It  is  a  great  historical  work, 
the  value  of  which  will  enormously  increase  with 
time.  My  description  of  this  painting  in  successive 
numbers  of  the  Boston  "Index"  in  1885  brought  out 
important  evidence  as  to  the  authenticity  of  the  story 
upon  which  the  painting  is  based, — especially  a  long 
editorial  in  the  New  York  "  Sun  "  of  September  27th 
of  that  year,  written  by  Edward  F.  Underbill.  Mr. 
Underhill  thinks  that  my  belief  in  the  truth  of  the 
story  of  the  child-kissing  by  Brown  is  built  upon 
sand.  It  may  be  so,  but  let  us  see.  No  one  knew 
before  the  appearance  of  Mr.  Underbill's  editorial 
where  the  famous  passage  came  from  which  was 
taken  by  Redpath  from  the  New  York  "  Tribune " 
for  his  Life  of  John  Brown,  and  thence  extracted  by 
Greeley  for  his  History  of  the  Civil  War,  and  which 
formed  the  basis  of  Whittier's  poem  and  Hovenden's 
painting.  The  truth  is  now  revealed:  it  came  from 
the  journalistic  brain  of  Mr.  Underhill.  In  his  "  Trib 
une  "  article,  he  tells  a  number  of  journalistic  false 
hoods,  assumes  to  have  been  an  eye-witness  of  every 
thing  he  relates,  speaks  of  the  very  expression  of 
Brown's  face,  his  smile,  the  elasticity  of  his  step,  and 
says  he  (the  writer)  was  present  at  the  scaffold.  But 
Mr.  Underhill  now  tells  us  that  this  was  only  a  jour 
nalistic  trick.  He  was  detailed  by  the  editor-in-chief 
to  write  the  article,  and  to  put  it  in  the  form  of  corre 
spondence,  in  order  to  deceive  the  vigilant  Southern 
ers  at  Charleston,  who  were  ready  to  string  up  the 
authors  of  all  letters  to  Northern  papers.  The  infor 
mation  for  his  article  Mr.  Underhill  got  from  the 
Abolitionist,  Mr.  J.  Miller  McKim,  who  came  to  the 
16 


242  JOHN    G.    WHITTIER. 

11  Tribune  "  office  two  days  after  the  hanging,  in  com 
pany  with  Mrs.  John  Brown.  Mr.  McKim  had  not 
been  allowed  to  go  to  Charleston  where  Brown  was, 
but  waited  at  Harper's  Ferry  while  Mrs.  Brown  went 
on  to  see  her  husband.  After  her  return  to  the  Ferry, 
and  while  they  were  both  waiting  there  for  Brown's 
remains  to  be  delivered  to  them,  McKim  heard,  in 
conversation  with  others,  the  statement  about  the 
kissing  of  the  slave-child.  It  did  not  come  at  first 
or  even  second  hand  to  him.  But  somehow  it  had  got 
abroad.  Was  it  true  ?  Only  two  persons  whose  word 
is  entitled  to  any  weight  have  denied  it.  These  are 
Mr.  Redpath  and  John  Brown's  jailer,  Captain  Avis. 
Brown's  best  biographer,  Mr.  F.  B.  Sanborn,  wrote 
to  me,  in  1885:  "  Redpath,  who  gave  currency  to  the 
story,  told  me  five  years  ago  that  it  was  not  true.  He 
depended  on  Ned  House  (the  'Tribune'  correspond 
ent)  for  it  (as  he  said),  and  he  had  discovered  that 
House  invented  it."  Now,  Edward  H.  House  was 
present  during  the  entire  trial  and  execution,  and 
sent  on  letters,  by  secret  channels,  to  the  New  York 
papers.  But  we  have  just  seen  that  it  was  not  he 
who  furnished  the  narrative  to  the  "  Tribune."  So 
that  Mr.  Redpath  was  mistaken.  House  did  not  in 
vent  the  "Tribune"  narrative.  As  for  Captain  Avis, 
he  testified  in  1882  as  follows  :  "Brown  was  between 
Sheriff  Campbell  and  me;  and  a  guard  of  soldiers 
surrounded  him,  and  allowed  no  person  to  come  be 
tween  them  and  the  prisoner,  from  the  jail  to  the 
scaffold,  except  his  escorts."  But  may  we  not  believe 
that  in  the  confusion  of  the  party  as  they  emerged 
from  the  jail  through  the  narrow  little  porch,  and 
just  before  the  formal  positions  of  the  march  to  the 


"TELLING  THE  BEES,"  AND  OTHER  BALLADS.      243 

wagon  had  been  assumed,  the  rough  old  hero,  who 
had  helped  so  many  slaves  out  of  bondage,  stooped, 
with  his  usual  alertness,  although  his  arms  were  tied 
behind  him,  to  kiss  the  slave-child  (as  a  last  example 
to  the  world),  and  passed  on,  Captain  Avis  being  at 
that  instant  separated  from  him  by  an  intervening 
body,  or  having  his  attention  drawn  to  the  military 
before  the  door? 

"  The  most  charming  and  best  authenticated  of  all 
our  traditions,"  says  Edward  Everett  Hale,  "  is  that 
commemorated  in  Whittier's  beautiful  ballad  '  The 
Palatine.' '  It  is  a  story  of  the  pillage  and  burning 
of  a  ship  by  wreckers,  and  of  its  annual  reappearance  as 
a  phantom  ship  of  fire.  The  scene  of  the  legend  is 
Block  Island,  called  by  the  Indians  Manisees,  "  the 
Isle  of  the  Little  God."  Here  once,  it  is  remem 
bered,  came  bold  Captain  Underbill,  and  in  an 
Indian  fight  received  an  arrow  against  his  helmeted 
forehead.  Picturesque  in  its  bluffs  and  in  its  fifteen 
miles  of  surf-beaten  sea-coast,  encircled  by  seas 
always  blue,  there  it  lies,  menacing  alike  in  its  smile 
and  its  frown,  with  its  death-scented  traditions  of 
innumerable  wrecks  and  wreckers,  and  pirate  deeds, 
planted  right  athwart  the  track  of  ships  sailing  out 
of  and  into  Long  Island  Sound,  not  the  fabled 
Symplegades  shunned  more  by  mariners  (even  now 
with  its  fine  lighthouses  and  brilliantly  lighted  sum 
mer  hotels), — such  is  Block  Island.  Leagues  north 
from  the  mainland, 

"  Point  Judith  watches  with  eye  of  hawk ; 
Leagues  south,  thy  beacon  flames,  Montauk." 

— Whittirr. 


244  JOHN    G.    WHITTIER. 

We  have  a  picture  of  the  sea  view  in  Walt  Whit 
man's  "  From  Montauk  Point  "  : — 

"  I  stand  as  on  some  mighty  eagle's  beak 
Eastward  the  sea  absorbing,  viewing,  (nothing  but  sea  and 

sky,) 

The  tossing  waves,  the  foam,  the  ships  in  the  distance, 
The   wild   unrest,  the   snowy,    curling   caps — that  inbound 

urge  and  urge  of  waves, 
Seeking  the  shores  forever." 

That  Nestor  of  American  poets,  the  elder  Dana, 
describes  Block  Island  in  his  "  Buccaneer  "  : — 

"  The  island  lies  nine  leagues  away, 

Along  its  solitary  shore, 

Of  craggy  rock  and  sandy  bay, 

No  sound  but  ocean's  roar, 

Save  where  the  bold  wild  sea-bird  makes  her  home, 
Her  shrill  cry  coming  through  the  sparkling  foam. 

"  But  when  the  light  winds  lie  at  rest, 
And  on  the  glassy  heaving  sea 
The  black  duck,  with  her  glossy  breast, 
Sits  swinging  silently, — 
How  beautiful !  no  ripples  break  the  reach, 
And  silvery  waves  go  noiseless  up  the  beach." 

So  far  as  can  be  discovered,  the  essential  facts  of 
the  wreck  of  the  "  Palatine,"  as  handed  down  by  tra 
dition,  are  these  : '  The  "  Palatine"  was  a  German 


1 1  have  consulted  the  following  authorities :  William  P.  Shef 
field's  "  Historical  Sketch  of  Block  Island,"  1876;  S.  T.  Liver- 
more's  "  History  of  Block  Island,"  1877  ;  Charles  Lanman's 
"  Recollections  of  Curious  Characters  and  Pleasant  Places," 
pp.  297-304;  Drake's  "  New  England  Legends,"  p.  406;  Edward 
E.  Hale's  "  Christmas  in  Narragansett,"  p.  285;  and  the  Poems  of 
Richard  H.  Dana,  Sen. 


"  TELLING  THE  BEES,"  AND  OTHER  BALLADS.         245 

emigrant  ship,  though  many  of  her  passengers  were 
quite  wealthy.  The  captain  had  either  died  or  been 
murdered  on  the  voyage  hither,  and  the  diabolical 
crew  had  caused  the  ship  to  lie  off  and  on,  skirting 
the  coasts  of  Delaware  for  weeks,  while  they  robbed 
the  passengers  of  all  they  could  extort  by  the  process 
of  starving  them  nearly  to  death  and  then  charging 
exorbitant  rates  for  morsels  of  food  and  drink. 
When  they  had  got  all  they  could,  the  crew  forsook 
the  ship,  which  drifted  ashore  on  Block  Island  one 
bright  Sabbath  morning,  between  the  festivals  of 
Christmas  and  New  Year's.  The  wreckers  boarded 
her,  and  found  that  some  of  the  miserable  passengers 
were  delirious.  They  landed  them  all  except  one 
woman,  Mary  Vanderline,  who  had  much  gold  and 
silver  plate  aboard,  and  who  refused  to  leave  the 
ship.  Many  of  the  suffering  emigrants  died  shortly 
afterwards,  and  were  buried  on  the  island.  The 
wreckers  towed  the  ship  into  a  little  cove,  where, 
having  pillaged  her,  they  set  her  on  fire  and  let  her 
drift  out  to  sea  with  the  unfortunate  woman  on 
board  (probably  having  stolen  her  treasure-chest,  as 
we  shall  see).  The  ship  drifted  away  into  the  dark 
ness  of  a  stormy  winter  night,  her  spars  and  cordage 
painted  in  flame  on  the  sky,  and  the  waves  blood-red 
below,  while  the  surf  boomed  on  the  shore,  the  wind 
flung  the  swirling  sand  about,  and  (as  tradition  says) 
the  shrieks  of  the  abandoned  woman  could  be  heard 
far  off,  growing  each  moment  fainter  and  fainter. 

"  In  their  cruel  hearts,  as  they  homeward  sped, 
'  The  sea  and  the  rocks  are  dumb/  they  said ; 
'There  '11  be  no  reckoning  with  the  dead.' 


246  JOHN    G.    WHITTIER. 

"  But  the  year  went  round,  and  when  once  more 
Along  the  foam-white  curves  of  shore 
They  heard  the  line-storm  rave  and  roar, 

"  Behold  !  again,  with  shimmer  and  shine, 
Over  the  rocks  and  the  seething  brine, 
The  flaming  wreck  of  the  Palatine  !  " 

—  Whittier. 

There  can  be  little  doubt  that  the  poet  Dana  had 
heard  this  legend  of  the  phantom  ship,  which  he  thus 
describes  in  his  hysterical,  blood-and-thunder  poem, 
"The  Buccaneer":— 

"  T  is  near  mid-hour  of  night : 
What  means  upon  the  waters  that  red  light? 

"  Not  higger  than  a  star  it  seems, 

And  now  't  is  like  the  bloody  moon  ! 

And  now  it  shoots  in  hairy  streams ! 

It  moves  ! — 'T  will  reach  us  soon  ! 
A  ship !  and  all  on  fire  ! — hull,  yard,  and  mast  ! 
Her  sails  are  sheets  of  flame  ! — she  's  nearing  fast ! 

"  And  now  she  rides  upright  and  still, 

Shedding  a  wild  and  lurid  light 

Around  the  cove,  on  inland  hill, 

Waking  the  gloom  of  night. 
All  breathes  of  terror !  men,  in  dumb  amaze, 
Gaze  on  each  other  in  the  horrid  blaze." 

No  phenomenon  is  better  authenticated  than  this 
of  the  moving  flame  of  Block  Island.  It  is  probably 
to  be  classed  with  such  electrical  appearances  at  sea 
as  the  St.  Elmo's  light  so  often  seen  on  the  tips  of 
spars  and  masts.  I  notice  that' Winthrop,  in  the  first 
volume  of  his  History  of  New  England,  speaks  of  a 
great  light  seen  in  the  night  on  a  river  near  Boston  : 


"TELLING  THE  BEES,"  AND  OTHER  BALLADS.         247 

"  When  it  stood  still,  it  flamed  up,  and  was  about 
three  yards  square  ;  when  it  ran,  it  was  contracted 
into  the  figure  of  a  swine.  It  ran  as  swift  as  an  arrow 
toward  Charl[es]ton,  and  so  up  and  down  about  two 
or  three  hours." 

In  1811,  Dr.  Aaron  C.  Willey,  who  then  lived  on 
Block  Island,  wrote  a  letter  to  Dr.  Samuel  Mitchell, 
of  New  York  City,  in  which  he  described  the  "Pala 
tine  "  light.  His  letter  was  printed  in  a  publication 
called  "  The  Parthenon."  Following  are  extracts 
from  this  letter  :— 

"  The  people  who  have  always  lived  here  are  so 
familiarized  to  the  sight  that  they  never  think  of 
giving  notice  to  those  who  do  not  happen  to  be 
present,  or  even  of  mentioning  it  afterwards,  unless 
they  hear  some  particular  enquiries  are  made. 

"  This  curious  irradiative  rises  from  the  ocean  near 
the  northern  part  of  the  island.  Its  appearance  is 
nothing  different  from  a  blaze  of  fire.  Whether  it 
actually  touches  the  water,  or  merely  hovers  over  it, 
is  uncertain,  for  I  have  been  informed  that  no  person 
has  been  near  enough  to  decide  accurately.  It  beams 
with  various  magnitudes,  and  appears  to  bear  no  more 
analogy  to  the  ignis  fatuus  than  it  does  to  the  Aurora 
borealis.  Sometimes  it  is  small,  resembling  the  light 
through  a  distant  window  ;  at  others  expanding  to  the 
highness  of  a  ship  with  all  her  canvas  spread.  .  .  . 

"  When  most  expanded,  this  blaze  is  generally 
wavering  like  the  flame  of  a  torch.  At  one  time  it 
appears  stationary,  at  another  progressive.  .  .  . 

"  It  is  often  seen  blazing  at  six  or  seven  miles'  dis 
tance,  and  strangers  suppose  it  to  be  a  vessel  on 
fire.  .  . 


248  JOHN    G.    WHITTIER. 

"  The  first  time  I  beheld  it  was  at  evening  twilight, 
in  February,  1810.  It  was  large  and  gently  lambent, 
very  bright,  broad  at  the  bottom  .and  terminating 
acutely  upward.  .  .  . 

"  I  saw  it  again  on  the  evening  of  December  the 
2oth.  It  was  then  small,  and  I  supposed  it  to  be  a 
light  on  board  of  some  vessel,  but  I  was  soon  unde 
ceived.  It  moved  along,  apparently  parallel  to  the 
shore,  for  about  two  miles,  in  the  time  that  I  was 
riding  one  at  a  moderate  pace." 

In  his  treatment  of  the  tradition  of  the  "  Palatine," 
Mr.  Whittier  has  been  charged  with  having  accused 
the  now  dead  and  gone  wreckers  of  Block  Island  of 
acts  of  which  they  were  never  guilty.  Rev.  S.  T. 
Livermore  thinks  that  "the  representing  of  an  entire 
community  of  law-abiding  Christian  people  as  bar 
barians  and  pirates  is  intolerable."  But  his  attempts 
to  invalidate  the  tradition  seem  quite  weak.  He  says 
that  after  the  appearance  of  Mr.  Whittier's  ballad 
researches  were  made  in  the  customs  archives  of 
Rotterdam  and  Amsterdam,  but  that  no  record  of 
any  ship  named  the  "  Palatine "  could  be  found, 
except  of  one  that  was  wrecked  in  the  Bay  of  Bengal 
in  1784.  This  proves  conclusively,  thinks  Mr.  Liver- 
more,  that  the  "  Palatine  "  was  not  wrecked  on  Block 
Island!  But  is  it  not  ridiculous  to  assume  that  there 
was  in  the  world  but  one  ship  of  that  name  ?  There 
were  probably  many.  Two  ships  of  the  same  name 
were  once  wrecked  on  Block  Island  itself,  and  on  the 
same  day.  Then  the  attempts  that  have  been  made 
to  bolster  up  the  character  of  the  old  islanders  have 
not  been  very  successful,  it  seems  to  me.  Mr.  Sam 
uel  Adams  Drake  (one  of  the  first  authorities  on  New 


11  TELLING  THE  BEES,"  AND  OTHER  BALLADS.         249 

England  traditions)  says  of  Block  Island:  "Somehow, 
the  reputation  of  the  island  was  never  good."  "Sail 
ors  always  shook  their  heads  when  they  spoke  of 
Block  Island.  A  bad  lee  shore,  a  place  of  no  good 
hap  for  the  unlucky  mariner  who  might  be  driven 
upon  it,  were  prevailing  notions, — and  firmly  rooted 
ones, — to  which  dark  hints,  and  still  darker  traditions, 
concerning  shipwrecked  crews  and  valuable  cargoes, 
give  a  certain  color  and  consistency.  *  I  would  rather 
be  wrecked  anywhere  than  on  Block  Island,'  became 
a  common  and  significant  saying  in  the  forecastle  or 
the  midnight  watch,  when  the  dark  mass  of  the  island 
heaved  in  sight."  1 

"  As  a  general  rule,  most  wreckers  would  be  called 
hard  characters,"  says  Mr.  W.  F.  G.  Shanks.2  Charles 
Lanman,  in  his  valuable  chapter  on  Block  Island, 
states  that  there  have  been  as  many  as  one  thousand 
wrecks  on  the  island  during  the  past  century,  and 
that  the  wreckers  have  grown  rich  from  them. 

The  hint  for  his  poem  "  The  Palatine  "  came  to  Mr. 
Whittier  from  James  Hazard,  of  Newport.  When 
complaints  of  the  islanders  came  to  the  poet  in  1876, 
he  wrote  to  Charles  E.  Perry,  a  Block  Islander,  as 
follows : — 

"  In  regard  to  the  poem  '  Palatine,'  I  can  only  say 
that  I  did  not  intend  to  misrepresent  the  facts  of 
history.  I  wrote  it  after  receiving  a  letter  from  Mr. 
Hazard,  of  Rhode  Island,  from  which  I  certainly 
inferred  that  the  ship  was  pillaged  by  the  islanders. 
He  mentioned  that  one  of  the  crew,  to  save  himself, 


1  New  England  Legends,  p.  406. 

2  Harper's  Monthly,  xxxviii.  433.     See  also  xviii.  577. 


250  JOHN    G.    WHITTIER. 

clung  to  the  boat  of  the  wreckers,  who  cut  his  hand 
off  with  a  sword.  It  is  very  possible  that  my  corre 
spondent  followed  the  current  tradition  on  the  main 
land.  .  .  . 

"  Mr.  Hazard  is  a  gentleman  of  character  and 
veracity,  and  I  have  no  doubt  he  gave  the  version  of 
the  story  as  he  had  heard  it." 

The  reader  will  notice  that  a  part  of  the  letter  is 
withheld  from  the  public  by  Mr.  Perry. 

Now,  what  is  the  value  of  the  traditions  as  handed 
down  ?  The  occurrence  of  the  wreck  is  known  to 
have  been  about  the  year  1750.  The  gulf  of  time 
from  that  day  to  this  is  spanned  by  two  or  three 
lives,  and  the  chain  of  tradition  is  admitted  to  be 
unbroken.  Two  of  the  women  who  were  saved  had 
the  same  name, — Kate, — and  were  styled  by  the 
islanders  Short  Kattern  and  Long  Kattern.  It  was 
Long  Kattern  who  told  of  the  starving  of  the  emi 
grants  by  the  crew  of  the  ship.  Her  descendants  are 
living  to-day.  The  tradition  is  traced  back  along 
two  or  three  other  threads.  It  must  be  remembered 
that  the  Block  Islanders  were  for  a  hundred -and 
seventy  years  without  mails  or  printing-press, — 
entirely  cut  off  from  regular  communication  with  the 
mainland.  In  such  cases  traditions  are  always  ten 
acious  and  of  great  historical  value.  Memory  is 
cultivated  by  fishermen  to  an  astonishing  extent.  I 
once  talked  with  one  of  this  class  living  at  the  mouth 
of  the  Connecticut  River  who  could  quote  by  the 
hour  from  all  the  great  English  poets. 

Again,  if  the  "  Palatine  "  were  not  wrecked,  how  is 
it,  I  would  ask,  that  logs  of  Lignum  vita  from  her 
cargo  were  obtained  by  the  islanders,  worked  up 


"  TELLING  THE  BEES,"  AND  OTHER  BALLADS.         251 

into  mortars  for  grinding  corn,  and  transmitted  to 
the  descendants  of  the  original  wreckers?  These 
mortars  are  to  be  seen  still,  and  no  one  has  denied 
that  they  were  from  the  "  Palatine."  Then  it  is  not 
denied  that  a  number  of  the  silver  cups  which 
belonged  to  the  passengers  are  still  shown  on  the 
island,  and  Mr.  Whittier  was  presented  with  a  plate 
which  is  said  to  have  come  from  the  ship.  It  seems 
pretty  evident  that  these  silver  cups  were  from  the 
treasure-box  of  poor  Mary  Vanderline,  the  woman 
who  perished  on  the  burning  vessel.  The  poet  Dana, 
who  lived  comparatively  near  the  island,  and  was 
born  only  about  thirty-five  years  after  the  wreck,  has 
in  his  poem  "  The  Buccaneer  "  a  Spanish  lady  who  is 
murdered  for  her  gold  by  the  Block  Island  cut-throat, 
Lee.  That  Dana  had  in  mind  the  "  Palatine  "  tradi 
tion  when  he  wrote  is  proved  not  only  by  this  inci 
dent,  but  by  other  correspondences  too  close  to  be 
the  result  of  chance.  For  example,  in  the  poem,  as 
by  the  tradition,  the  vessel  is  set  on  fire  and  then 
abandoned;  and  in  both  the  spectre  ship  appears. 

It  is  a  curious  thing, — this  bitter  determination  of 
our  times  to  deny  the  possibility  of  heroic  deeds, 
and,  conversely,  to  soften  down  or  wholly  excuse 
great  crimes.  There  is  no  such  thing  as  genius,  they 
are  happy  to  inform  us;  and  self-sacrificing  heroism 
is  laughed  at,  unless  interest  is  somehow  spied  as  a 
motive.  Homer  never  wrote  the  Iliad,  nor  Shakspere 
his  plays;  Christ  never  really  existed;  Joan  of  Arc 
was  no  heroine  at  all;  Cromwell  was  a  humbug,  and 
so  was  John  Brown;  grand  old  Walt  Whitman  is  a 
disgrace  to  the  earth;  William  Lloyd  Garrison  was 
only  actuated  by  love  of  fame;  the  pipers  did  n't  pipe 


252  /OHN    G.    WHITTIER. 

at  Lucknow,  Barbara  did  n't  wave  her  flag,  and  Sheri 
dan  rode  only  eight  miles,  not  twenty.  The  diluted 
ethical  wash  is  applied  with  a  broad  brush  to  nearly 
every  great  personality  and  noble  deed  in  history. 
There  is  the  story  of  John  Brown  magnanimously 
kissing  the  little  slave-child  in  its  mother's  arms. 
Assuming  the  incident  to  be  true,  we  may  suppose 
he  did  it  on  purpose  to  rebuke  the  shameful  color- 
caste  which  makes  America  as  provincial  and  as  infe 
rior  to  England  in  social  ethics  as  she  is  in  the  matter 
of  free  trade  and  copyright.1  But  the  very  idea  of 
such  an  act  excites  our  repugnance.  Oh,  no!  John 
Brown  never  did  such  a  thing.  Christ  had  a  darker 
skin  than  thousands  of  negroes  in  America,  but  he 
would  never  have  taken  a  little  negro  child  in  his 
arms  and  blessed  it,  poor  thing !  And  little  Eva 
caressing  and  kissing  Uncle  Tom, — what  a  shocking 
matter!  You  may  hug  and  kiss  your  poodle  dogs, 
my  dear  children,  but  do  n't  touch  even  with  the  tongs 
such  persons  as  Frederick  Douglass,  or  Crispus 
Attucks,  or  Toussaint  L'Ouverture,  or  Alexandre 
Dumas. 

Precisely  the  same  spirit  that  would  drag  down 
the  great  to  the  common  level  seeks  to  lift  up  to  that 
level  those  who  have  fallen  below  it, — the  great 
criminals  of  history,  from  Napoleon  and  Henry  VIII. 
down  to  Boss  Tweed  and  Jim  Fiske  and  the  whole 


1  Strong,  robust  natures  never  have  this  hysterical-morbid  horror 
of  the  negro.  Louisa  M.  Alcott,  in  her  "Hospital  Sketches" 
(p.  76),  tells  how  her  Abolition  blood  took  fire  one  day  in  Wash 
ington  and,  just  to  give  a  lesson  to  a  nase-weis  Southern  woman, 
she  caught  up  a  funny  little  black  cherub  and  kissed  it.  She  was 
henceforth  regarded  as  a  dangerous  fanatic. 


"  TELLING  THE  BEES,"  AND  OTHER  BALLADS.         253 

rogues-gallery  brigade  of  American  plutocratic 
scoundrels.  There,  for  example,  is  Skipper  Ireson, 
the  poor  fellow  !  Do  you  know  it  is  all  a  mistake 
about  the  young  skipper's  leaving  those  men  to 
drown?  It  was  n't  he,  after  all:  it  was  somebody  else. 
And  there  were  those  men  of  Block  Island  a  hundred 
and  fifty  years  ago, — not  savage,  stony-hearted 
wreckers  at  all,  but  God-fearing,  benevolent  gentle 
men  of  the  sea,  who  tenderly  cared  for  shipwrecked 
crews,  and  were  never  in  their  lives  known  to  plunder 
a  cargo,  knock  a  sailor  on  the  head,  or  burn  a  ship. 
Oh,  no,  not  they!  It  was  those  other  fellows,  the 
pirates,  you  know,  who  used  to  come  to  the  island. 
People  read  about  the  pirates,  and  gradually  came 
to  think  that  all  the  inhabitants  of  the  island  were 
cut-throat  rascals  like  these,  say  the  modern  Block 
Islanders.  But  fair  and  softly,  good  friends!  We 
cannot  dress  up  all  our  grim  forbears  in  stoles  and  albs. 
This  is  a  wild  rough  world,  and  some  pretty  grisly 
things  have  been  done  on  its  surface.  It  won't  hurt 
us  to  admit  it,  either. 

There  has  been  a  little  discussion  about  the 
authenticity  of  the  thrilling  incident  told  in  Whit- 
tier's  "  Pipes  at  Lucknow": — 

"  Pipes  of  the  misty  moorlands, 

Voice  of  the  glens  and  hills; 
The  droning  of  the  torrents, 

The  treble  of  the  rills  ! 
Not  the  braes  of  hroom  and  heather, 

Nor  the  mountains  dark  with  rain, 
Nor  maiden  bower,  nor  border  tower, 

Have  heard  your  sweetest  strain  ! 


254  JOHN    G.    WHITTIER. 

"  Dear  to  the  Lowland  reaper, 

And  plaided  mountaineer, — 
To  the  cottage  and  the  castle 

The  Scottish  pipes  are  dear ; — 
Sweet  sounds  the  ancient  pibroch 

O'er  mountain,  loch,  and  glade ; 
But  the  sweetest  of  all  music 

The  pipes  at  Lucknow  played." 

The  Lucknow  incident  was  enticing  to  poets,  and 
in  Scotland  it  gave  birth  to  many  a  ballad  and  song. 
But  Whittier's  in  America  excelled  them  all.  Late 
in  his  life,  Tennyson  wrote  a  wretched  piece  of 
fustian  on  the  subject.  The  closing  lines  are  good:— 

"  Saved  by  the  valour  of  Havelock,  saved  by  the  blessing  of 

Heaven ! 

'  Hold  it  for  fifteen  days  ! '  we  have  held  it  for  eighty-seven! 
And  ever  aloft  on  the  palace  roof  the  old  banner  of  England 
blew." 

The  city  of  Lucknow  consists  chiefly  of  a  long 
straggling  street  of  houses  stretching  away  from  the 
great  compound  house  called  the  Residency,  which 
rises  from  an  eminence  by  the  river  Goomtee.  The 
garrison  building  is,  or  was,  in  the  form  of  a  squarish- 
built,  battlemented  structure.  For  a  mile  or  so  in 
front  of  it  are  enormous  Versailles-like  palaces  and 
court-yards  and  tombs  of  princes.  Not  long  after 
the  rebellion  broke  out,  Sir  Henry  Lawrence  had  put 
the  Residency  into  a  state  of  siege.  Martial  law  had 
been  proclaimed;  treasure  and  ammunition  buried; 
houses  unroofed  or  blown  up;  carriages,  mahogany 
tables,  and  a  splendid  Oriental  library  converted  into 
a  barricade;  batteries  made;  stockades  formed;  and 


"  TELLING  THE  BEES,"  AND  OTHER  BALLADS          255 

the  racket-court  thatched  and  stored  with  bhoosa  for 
the  cattle.  The  heroic  garrison,  at  the  time  of  the 
incident  of  the  poem,  had  held  out  for  nearly  three 
months  against  the  ferocious  Sepoys.  All  hope  of 
rescue  had  been  abandoned;  the  Residency  was  rid 
dled  with  cannon-shot  and  bullets,  and  surrender 
had  become  only  a  question  of  days.  It  was  known 
that  a  rescuing  force  was  approaching,  but  no  one 
knew  where  it  was. 

Here,  now,  comes  in  the  account  which  gave  rise 
to  the  poem.  It  was  published  in  the  "  Jersey  Times" 
(England)  Dec.  10,  1857,  with  this  editorial  prefix: 
"The  following  is  an  extract  from  a  letter  written  by 
M.  de  Banneroi,  a  French  physician  in  the  service 
of  Mussur  Rajah,  and  published  in  "  Le  Pays  "  (Paris 
paper)  under  the  date  of  Calcutta,  Oct.  8."1 

"  I  give  you  the  following  account  of  the  relief  of 
Lucknow,  as  described  by  a  lady,  one  of  the  rescued 
party: — 

"  *  On  every  side,  death  stared  us  in  the  face;  no 
human  skill  could  avert  it  any  longer.  We  saw  the 
moment  approach  when  we  must  bid  farewell  to 
earth,  yet  without  feeling  that  unutterable  horror 
which  must  have  been  experienced  by  the  unhappy 
victims  of  Cawnpore.  We  were  resolved  to  die 
rather  than  yield,  and  were  fully  persuaded  that  in 
twenty-four  hours  all  would  be  over.  The  engineers 
had  said  so,  and  all  knew  the  worst.  We  women 


1  The  whole  extract  is  quoted  in  the  Boston  "  Liberator,"  Jan. 
22,  1858.  A  poor  rewritten  copy,  with  some  of  the  choicest  mor 
sels  gnawed  out,  was  printed  in  "  LittelPs  Living  Age,"  Jan.  23, 
1858.  Whittier's  poem  "  Lucknow  "  was  printed  in  the  "  National 
Era  "  in  the  same  month. 


256  JOHN    G.    WHITTIER. 

strove  to  encourage  each  other,  and  to  perform  the 
light  duties  which  had  been  assigned  to  us,  such  as 
conveying  orders  to  the  batteries,  and  supplying  the 
men  with  provisions,  especially  cups  of  coffee,  which 
we  prepared  day  and  night.  I  had  gone  out  to  try 
and  make  myself  useful,  in  company  with  Jessie 
Brown,  the  wife  of  a  corporal  in  my  husband's  regi 
ment.  Poor  Jessie  had  been  in  a  state  of  restless 
anxiety  all  through  the  siege,  and  had  fallen  away 
visibly  within  the  last  few  days.  A  constant  fever 
consumed  her,  and  her  mind  wandered  occasionally, 
especially  that  day,  when  the  recollections  of  home 
seemed  powerfully  present  to  her.  At  last,  overcome 
with  fatigue,  she  lay  down  on  the  ground,  wrapped 
up  in  her  plaid.  I  sat  beside  her,  promising  to 
awaken  her  when,  as  she  said,  '  her  father  should 
return  from  the  ploughing.'  She  fell  at  length  into 
a  profound  slumber,  motionless  and  apparently 
breathless,  her  head  resting  in  my  lap.  I  myself  could 
no  longer  resist  the  inclination  to  sleep,  in  spite  of 
the  continued  roar  of  cannon.  Suddenly,  I  was 
aroused  by  a  wild,  unearthly  scream  close  to  my  ear; 
my  companion  stood  up  beside  me,  her  arms  raised, 
and  her  head  bent  forward  in  the  attitude  of  listen 
ing.  A  look  of  intense  delight  broke  over  her  coun 
tenance;  she  grasped  my  hand,  drew  me  toward  her, 
and  exclaimed,  '  Dinna  ye  hear  it  ?  dinna  ye  hear  it  ? 
Ay,  I  'm  no  dreamin',  it 's  the  slogan  o'  the  Highlanders! 
We  're  saved,  we  're  saved! '  Then,  flinging  herself  on 
her  knees,  she  thanked  God  with  passionate  fervor. 

"  '  I  felt  utterly  bewildered  :  my  English  ears  heard 
only  the  roar  of  artillery,  and  I  thought  my  poor 
Jessie  was  still  raving  ;  but  she  darted  to  the  batteries, 


"  TELLING  THE  BEES,"  AND  OTHER  BALLADS.         257 

and  I  heard  her  cry  incessantly  to  the  men,  "  Courage  I 
Courage!  Hark  to  the  slogan — to  the  MacGregor,  the 
grandest  of  them  a'!  Here's  help  at  last !"  To 
describe  the  effect  of  these  words  upon  the  soldiers 
would  be  impossible.  For  a  moment  they  ceased 
firing,  and  every  soul  listened  in  intense  anxiety. 
Gradually,  however,  there  arose  a  murmur  of  intense 
disappointment,  and  the  wailing  of  the  women  who 
had  flocked  to  the  spot  burst  out  anew  as  the  colonel 
shook  his  head.  Our  dull  lowland  ears  heard  nothing 
but  the  rattle  of  the  musketry.  A  few  moments  more 
of  this  death-like  suspense,  of  this  agonizing  hope, 
and  Jessie,  who  had  again  sunk  on  the  ground  [the 
best  place  for  detecting  a  distant  sound],  sprang  to 
her  feet,  and  cried  in  a  voice  so  clear  and  piercing 
that  it  was  heard  along  the  whole  line, — "  Will  ye  no 
believe  it  noo  ?  The  slogan  has  ceased,  but  the  Camp 
bells  are  comin'!  D' ye  hear,  d' ye  hear  ?"  At  that 
moment  we  seemed  to  hear  the  voice  of  God  in  the 
distance,  when  the  pibroch  of  the  Highlanders  brought 
us  tidings  of  deliverance,  for  now  there  was  no  longer 
any  doubt  of  the  fact.  That  shrill,  penetrating,  cease 
less  sound,  which  rose  above  all  other  sounds,  could 
come  neither  from  the  advance  of  the  enemy  nor 
from  the  work  of  the  sappers.  No,  it  was  indeed  the 
blast  of  the  Scottish  bagpipes,  now  shrill  and  harsh, 
as  threatening  vengeance  on  the  foe,  then  in  softer 
tones  seeming  to  promise  succor  to  their  friends  in 
need.'  " 

"  Louder,  nearer,  fierce  as  vengeance, 

Sharp  and  shrill  as  swords  at  strife, 
Came  the  wild  MacGregor's  clan-call, 
Stinging  all  the  air  to  life. 

17 


258  JOHN    G.    WHITTIER. 

But  when  the  far-off  dust-cloud 

To  plaided  legions  grew, 
Full  tenderly  and  blithesomely 

The  pipes  of  rescue  blew  !  " 

"'Never  surely  was  there  such  a  scene  as  that 
which  followed.  Not  a  heart  in  the  Residency  of 
Lucknow  but  bowed  itself  before  God.  All  by  one 
simultaneous  impulse  fell  upon  their  knees,  and  noth 
ing  was  heard  but  bursting  sobs  and  the  murmured 
voice  of  prayer.  Then  all  arose,  and  there  rang  out 
from  a  thousand  lips  a  great  sound  of  joy  which 
resounded  far  and  wide,  and  lent  new  vigor  to  that 
blessed  pibroch.  To  our  cheer  of  "  God  save  the 
Queen,"  they  replied  by  the  well-known  strain  that 
moves  every  Scot  to  tears,  "  Should  auld  acquaint 
ance  be  forgot."  After  that,  nothing  else  made  any 
impression  on  me.  I  scarcely  remember  what  fol 
lowed.  Jessie  was  presented  to  the  General  on  his 
entrance  into  the  fort,  and  at  the  officers'  banquet 
her  health  was  drunk  by  all  present,  while  the  pipers 
marched  round  the  table  playing  once  more  the 
familiar  air  of  "  Auld  Lang  Syne."  '  " 

Another  lady  wrote  :  "  Never  shall  I  forget  the 
moment  to  the  latest  day  I  live.  It  was  most 
overpowering.  We  had  no  idea  they  were  so  near, 
and  were  breathing  air  in  the  portico  as  usual  at  that 
hour,  speculating  when  they  might  be  in,  not  expect 
ing  they  could  reach  us  for  several  days  longer,  when 
suddenly,  just  at  dark,  we  heard  a  very  sharp  fire  of 
musketry  quite  close  by,  and  then  a  tremendous 
cheering  ;  an  instant  after,  the  sound  of  bagpipes, 
then  soldiers  running  up  the  road,  our  compound 
and  veranda  filled  with  our  deliverers,  and  all  of  us 


"  TELLING  THE  BEES,"  AND  OTHER  BALLADS.         259 

shaking  hands  frantically,  and  exchanging  fervent 
1  God  bless  you's'  with  the  gallant  men  and  officers 
of  the  ySth  Highlanders.  Sir  James  Outram  and 
staff  were  the  next  to  come  in,  and  the  state  of  joyful 
confusion  and  excitement  is  beyond  all  description. 
The  big  rough-bearded  soldiers  were  seizing  the 
little  children  out  of  our  arms,  kissing  them  with 
tears  rolling  down  their  cheeks,  and  thanking  God 
they  had  come  in  time  to  save  them  from  the  fate  of 
those  at  Cawnpore.  .  .  .  The  faces  of  utter 
strangers  beamed  upon  each  other  like  those  of 
dearest  friends  and  brothers."  1 

There  was  one  incident  of  the  rescue  that,  stupefied 
and  blunted  as  their  feelings  were  by  scenes  of  car 
nage,  touched  the  hearts  of  all.  I  refer  to  the  bayo- 
netting  of  several  loyal  Sepoys  by  mistake  as  the 
infuriated  Highlanders  rushed  in.  One  of  these 
natives,  as  he  was  dying,  waved  his  hand  and  said  : 
"  It  is  all  for  the  good  cause.  Welcome,  friend  !  " 

The  war-cry  of  the  MacGregors,  alluded  to  by 
Whittier,  is  "  O  'ard  choille  !  " 

No  sooner  was  the  story  of  Jessie  Brown  and  the 
Highlanders  published  than  the  sceptical  and  criti 
cal  fry  began  to  open  fire  on  it.  Some  one  in 
"  Notes  and  Queries  "  thought  the  whole  story  must 
be  apocryphal,  because  the  narrator  of  it  seemed 
stupidly  to  confound  the  slogan,  or  war-cry,  with  the 
pibroch,  or  music  of  the  bagpipes  (but  look  back,  and 
you  will  see  that  it  is  not  so).  Mr.  Critic  thought, 
further,  that  the  ancient  slogans  were  not  likely  to 


1  A   Lady's  Diary  of  the  Seige  of   Lucknow,   London,  Murray, 
1858,  p.  119. 


260  JOHN    G.    WHITTIER. 

have  been  used  by  modern  Highlanders.  Then,  the 
Calcutta  correspondent  of  the  "  Nonconformist " 
murmurs,  with  a  rich  purr  of  self-complacency  :— 

"  We  have  read  with  some  surprise  and  amusement 
that  wonderful  story  published  in  the  English  papers 
about  Jessie  Brown  and  the  slogan  of  the  Highland 
ers,  in  Havelock's  relief  of  Lucknow.  I  have  been 
assured  by  one  of  the  garrison  that  it  is  a  pure  inven 
tion,  i.  No  letter  of  the  date  mentioned  could  have 
reached  Calcutta  when  the  story  is  said  to  have 
arrived.  2.  There  was  no  Jessie  Brown  in  Lucknow. 
3.  The  y8th  neither  played  their  pipes  nor  howled  out 
the  slogan  as  they  came  in;  they  had  something  else 
to  do.  4.  They  never  marched  round  the  dinner- 
table  with  their  pipes  the  same  evening  at  all." 

"  There  was  no  Jessie  Brown  ";  but  L.  G.  R.  Rees, 
one  of  the  surviving  defenders,  says  in  his  authorita 
tive  work  on  Lucknow  that  there  were  at  the  time 
eight  hundred  women  and  children  in  the  Residency. 
Pray,  how  did  our  Calcutta  correspondent  know 
them  all  ?  Did  he  know  one  of  them  ?  Probably  not. 
Did  his  informer  know  more  than  a  dozen  or  more  of 
their  names  ?  It  was  impossible.  There  were  at 
least  two  women  named  Brown  there,  as  appears 
from  Mr.  Rees's  list  of  commisioned  officers  and  vol 
unteer  helpers  and  their  families.  Again,  "  There 
was  no  playing  of  bagpipes,"  says  our  critic,  hun 
dreds  of  miles  away  from  the  scene.  But  every  book 
account  we  have,  written  by  the  besieged,  states  that 
the  Highlanders  did  play  their  pipes,  not  when  they 
were  rushing  in  of  course,  hard  pressed  by  the 
enemy,  but  at  some  time  in  the  slow  march  towards 
the  garrison.  As  for  the  playing  of  the  pipers  around 


"TELLING  THE  BEES,"  AND  OTHER  BALLADS.      261 

the  dinner-table,  we  need  only  recall  George  MacDon- 
ald's  "  Malcolm,"  and  ask  whether  the  piping  was  not 
almost  sure  to  have  occurred. 

In  the  "  Diary  of  the  Defence  of  Lucknow  "  by  a 
staff  officer,  p.  170,  it  is  stated  that,  some  time  be 
fore  the  y8th  Highlanders  (which  was  fighting  its 
way  slowly  up  the  streets  a  few  miles  away)  reached 
the  Residency,  several  of  the  besieged  thought  they 
heard  musketry  in  the  distance,  "  and  the  sound  was 
listened  to  with  the  most  intense  and  painful  anx 
iety  by  the  garrison."  Later  in  the  day  another 
distant  cannonade  was  heard.  "  This  elicited  many 
and  divers  opinions,  and  created  the  greatest  pos 
sible  excitement."  Is  it  not  clear  that,  on  this  or 
just  such  another  occasion  after  it,  the  incident 
related  of  the  Scotch  woman,  with  such  circum 
stantial  detail  and  verisimilitude,  was  just  the  kind 
of  thing  likely  to  happen?  Is  there  anything  in  the 
lady's  narrative  (which  furnished  the  text  of  the 
poem)  that  looks  like  fiction  ?  Does  it  not  bear  the 
stamp  of  artless  truth  in  every  word  and  line  ?  Fi 
nally  (to  finish  up  the  Calcutta  fellow),  let  me  prick 
the  wind  out  of  his  assertion  that  no  letter 
could  have  reached  Calcutta  in  the  time  implied  by 
the  date  of  the  French  physician's  letter  to  Paris. 
Now,  the  distance  from  Lucknow  to  Calcutta  is 
given  in  the  gazetteers  as  less  than  564  miles ; 
the  relief  of  the  garrison  occurred  on  September  26; 
the  date  of  M.  de  Banneroi's  letter  is  October  8; 
this  gives  fourteen  days  for  the  letter-courier,  travel 
ing  less  than  the  paltry  distance  of  forty  miles  a 
day,  over  roads  smooth  as  a  floor,  to  reach  Calcutta 
Anything  impossible  in  that  ? 


262  JOHN    G.    WHITTIER. 

We  will  close  this  chapter  with  some  remarks  on 
one  other  ballad  of  Whittier's,  the  accuracy  of  which 
has  been  challenged. 

Besse,  in  his  "  Sufferings  of  the  Quakers,"  tells  us 
that  the  person  chiefly  instrumental  in  procuring 
from  Charles  II.  the  letter,  styled  by  Whittier  the 
King's  Missive,  which  prohibited  further  severe 
punishment  of  Quakers  in  Massachusetts,  and  re 
quired  the  Governor  to  send  culprits  to  England  for 
trial,  was  Edward  Burroughs.  It  is  said  that  Bur 
roughs  was  had  to  the  King  while  he  was  playing 
tennis  out  of  doors.  Seeing  that  the  Quaker  kept 
his  hat  on,  the  King  gracefully  removed  his  plumed 
hat  and  bowed.  "  Thee  need'st  not  remove  thy  hat," 
said  Burroughs.  "  Oh,"  replied  his  Majesty,  "  it  is 
of  no  consequence,  only  that  when  the  King  and  an 
other  gentleman  are  talking  together  it  is  usual  for 
one  of  them  to  take  off  his  hat."  Burroughs  told  the 
King  that  there  was  "  a  vein  of  innocent  blood 
opened  in  his  dominions,  which,  if  it  were  not  stopt, 
might  overrun  all."  Charles  replied,  "But  I  will  stop 
that  vein."  It  was  presently  arranged,  then,  that  a 
certain  Samuel  Shattuck  should  be  the  bearer  of  a 
letter  to  America.  He  sailed  with  a  Friend  named 
Ralph  Goldsmith,  and  arrived  in  Boston  Harbor  on 
a  Sunday  in  the  latter  part  of  November,  1661. 

''The  townsmen,"  says  Besse,  "  seeing  a  ship  with 
English  colours,  soon  came  on  board  and  asked  for 
the  Captain.  Ralph  Goldsmith  told  them  he  was  the 
Commander.  They  asked  whether  he  had  any  letters. 
He  answered,  l  Yes.'  But  withal  told  them  he  would 
not  deliver  them  that  day.  So  they  returned  on 
shore  again,  and  reported  that  there  were  many 


Quakers  come,  and  that  Samuel  Shattuck  (who  they 
knew  had  been  banished  on  pain  of  death)  was 
among  them.  But  they  knew  nothing  of  his  errand 
or  authority.  Thus  all  was  kept  close,  and  none  of 
the  ship's  company  suffered  to  go  on  shore  that  day. 
Next  morning  Ralph  Goldsmith,  the  Commander, 
with  Samuel  Shattuck,  the  King's  deputy,  went  on 
shore,  and,  sending  the  boat  back  to  the  ship,  they 
two  went  directly  through  the  town  to  the  Gover- 
nour's  house,  and  knockt  at  the  door:  he  sending  a 
man  to  know  their  business,  they  sent  him  word  that 
their  message  was  from  the  King  of  England,  and 
that  they  would  deliver  it  to  none  but  himself.  Then 
they  were  admitted  to  go  in,  and  the  Governour  came 
to  them,  and  commanded  Samuel  Shattuck's  hat  to 
be  taken  off,  and  having  received  the  deputation  and 
the  mandamus,  he  laid  off  his  own  hat;  and  order 
ing  Shattuck's  hat  to  be  given  him  again,  perused 
the  papers,  and  then  went  out  to  the  Deputy-Gov- 
ernour's,  bidding  the  King's  deputy  and  the  master 
of  the  ship  to  follow  him :  being  come  to  the 
Deputy-Governour,  and  having  consulted  him,  he 
returned  to  the  aforesaid  two  persons  and  said, 
( We  shall  obey  his  Majesty's  command.'  After 
this  the  master  of  the  ship  gave  liberty  to  his 
passengers  to  come  on  shore,  which  they  did, 
and  had  a  religious  meeting  with  their  friends  of 
the  town,  where  they  returned  praises  to  God 
for  his  mercy  manifested  in  this  wonderful  deliver 
ance." 

After  the  appearance  of  the  poem  by  Mr.  Whittier, 
based  on  this  narrative,  in  the  "  Memorial  History  of 
Boston,"  Mr.  George  E.  Ellis  attempted,  unsuccess- 


264  JOHN    G.    WHITTIER. 

fully,  to  prove  that  the  treatment  of  the  subject  by 
the  poet  was  historically  inaccurate.  He  affirmed 
that 'there  was  no  releasing  of  imprisoned  Quakers, 
since  none  were  held  in  custody  at  that  time,  and 
that  a  meeting  for  praise  and  thanksgiving  would 
not  have  been  allowed. 

Mr.  Whittier,  in  reply,  said  that  it  was  not  easy  to 
be  strictly  accurate  in  every  detail  of  a  ballad;  yet  in 
"The  King's  Missive  "  he  believed  he  had  preserved 
with  tolerable  correctness  the  spirit,  tone,  and  color 
of  the  incident  and  its  time.  He  quotes  from  Besse 
the  very  order  of  the  Court  addressed  to  William 
Salter,  the  jailer,  ordering  the  release  of  the  Quakers. 
As  to  the  meeting  of  Friends  for  jubilation,  Mr. 
Whittier  might  have  referred  to  the  passage  in  Besse 
which  I  have  just  cited  for  proof  that  there  was  such 
a  meeting,  and  he  does  quote  from  the  journal  of 
George  Fox  the  statement  that  "  the  passengers  in 
the  ship  and  the  Friends  in  the  town  met  together, 
and  offered  up  praise  and  thanksgiving  to  God,  who 
had  so  wonderfully  delivered  them  out  of  the  teeth 
of  the  devourer,"  and  that,  while  they  were  thus  met, 
"  in  came  a  poor  Friend,  who,  being  sentenced  by 
their  bloody  law  to  die,  had  lain  some  time  in  irons, 
expecting  execution." 

In  view  of  these  facts,  Mr.  Whittier  very  justly 
says  that  he  sees  no  reason  to  rub  out  any  of  the  fig 
ures  or  alter  the  lines  and  colors  of  the  poem.  He 
admits  that  the  interview  took  place  at  the  Gover 
nor's  residence,  and  not  in  the  town  hall,  as  the  poem 
has  it,  but  thinks,  with  Mr.  Justin  Winsor,  that  this 
variation  from  the  facts  is  a  fair  poetic  license. 

The  lines, 


"TELLING  THE  BEES,"  AND  OTHER  BALLADS.      265 

"  He  had  shorn  with  his  sword  the  cross  from  out 
The  flag," 

are  the  poetical  statement  of  an  historical  event 
which  is  thus  dramatically  worked  out  by  Hawthorne 
in  his  story  of  "  Endicott  and  the  Red  Cross  "  :— 

"  Endicott  gazed  round  at  the  excited  counte 
nances  of  the  people,  now  full  of  his  own  spirit,  and 
then  turned  suddenly  to  the  standard-bearer,  who 
stood  close  behind  him. 

"  *  Officer,  lower  your  banner  ! '  said  he. 

"The  officer  obeyed;  and,  brandishing  his  sword, 
Endicott  thrust  it  through  the  cloth,  and  with  his 
left  hand  rent  the  red  cross  completely  out  of  the 
banner.  He  then  waved  the  tattered  ensign  above 
his  head. 

"  *  Sacrilegious  wretch  ! '  cried  the  High  Church 
man  in  the  pillory,  unable  longer  to  restrain  him 
self,  '  thou  hast  rejected  the  symbol  of  our  holy 
religion! ' 

"'Treason,  treason!'  roared  the  royalist  in  the 
stocks.  '  He  hath  defaced  the  King's  banner  !  ' 

"  '  Before  God  and  man  I  will  avouch  the  deed,' 
answered  Endicott.  *  Beat  a  flourish,  drummer  ! — 
shout,  soldiers  and  people  ! — in  honor  of  the  ensign 
of  New  England.  Neither  Pope  nor  Tyrant  hath 
part  in  it  now  !  ' 

"  With  a  cry  of  triumph,  the  people  gave  their 
sanction  to  one  of  the  boldest  exploits  which  our  his 
tory  records." 

The  poet  has  also  wrought  into  the  texture  of  his 
rich  tapestry  a  pretty  little  picture  of  old  Nicholas 
Upsall.  Amid  the  hootings  of  the  rabble  that  fol 
lowed  the  joyful  Quakers  about  the  streets — 


266  JOHN     G.    WHITTIER. 

"  One  brave  voice  rose  above  the  din. 

Upsall,  gray  with  his  length  of  days, 
Cried  from  the  door  of  his  Red  Lion  Inn  : 
'  Men  of  Boston,  give  God  the  praise  ! ' ' 

Upsall  was  at  that  time  an  aged  and  highly 
respectable  citizen  of  Boston,  a  member  of  the  Puri 
tan  church.  For  showing  kindness  to  the  Quakers — 
such  as  having  the  spot  on  the  Common  where  the 
martyred  Quakers  were  buried  surrounded  by  a 
fence — he  was  fined,  banished,  and,  on  his  return, 
imprisoned  for  several  years,  until  the  hardships  he 
had  endured  finally  broke  down  his  health.  Besse 
says  that  the  old  man,  when  banished,  went  to  Rhode 
Island  in  the  winter,  where  he  received  hospitality 
from  an  Indian  chief,  who  said,  if  he  would  stay  with 
him,  he  would  build  him  a  warm  home.  Said  the 
Indian,  "  What  a  god  have  the  English  who  deal  so 
cruelly  with  one  another  about  their  god  !  " 

Upsall's  Red  Lion  Inn  stood  on  what  is  now  the 
corner  of  North  and  Richmond  Streets  and  near  the 
old  Red  Lion  Wharf,  North  Street  being  then  the 
shore-line  of  the  city,  and  corresponding  to  the  mod 
ern  Atlantic  Avenue.  Upsall's  granddaughter  mar 
ried  one  of  the  Wadsworth  ancestors  of  the  poet 
Longfellow.  This  Wadsworth  was  a  gunsmith,  and 
his  sign  may  still  be  seen  imbedded  in  a  brick  wall 
on  the  site  of  Red  Lion  Inn. 

The  "  much-scourged  Wharton  "  of  the  "  King's 
Mis'sive"  is  Edward  Wharton  of  Salem,  the  same 
"aged  stranger"  who  was  sheltered  by  Thomas 
Macey,  as  described  in  Whittier's  "  Exiles." 

"  Snow  Hill  "  is  the  Copp's  Hill  of  later  times,  and 


'•  TELLING  THE  BEES,"  AND  OTHER  BALLADS.         267 

on  it  stood  the  principal  windmill  of  the  town.  "  Gen 
try  Hill "  is  now  Beacon  Hill. 

The  jail  that  held  the  imprisoned  Friends  stood  on 
the  site  of  the  present  Old  Court  House, — the  scene 
of  the  attempted  rescue  of  Anthony  Burns  in  anti- 
slavery  times.  The  "Council  Chamber"  was  in  the 
Town  House  on  the  site  of  the  present  Old  State 
House. 

"  The  Xeck  "  means  the  long  ligature  of  land  by 
which  the  city  once  "  hung  to  the  mainland"  at  Rox- 
bury  :  it  has  now  been  incorporated  into  a  vast  area 
of  *•  made"  land. 

Readers  of  New  England  poets  living  in  other 
parts  of  the  country  need  to  be  reminded  that  "  wal 
nut  "  in  New  England  means  hickory-nut,  and  not 
the  dumpling-like  nut  with  the  black  undivided  hull 
which  is  known  as  walnut  in  the  West  and  South. 


CHAPTER    VI. 

STORIES    IN    RHYME. 

WHILE  I  have  attempted  to  show  that  there  is  a 
sound  historical  basis  for  all  the  ballads  discussed  in 
the  preceding  chapter,  I  would  not  be  understood  as 
maintaining  that  Whittier  in  his  rhymed  stories  has 
not  taken  advantage  of  poetical  license  in  the  work 
ing  out  of  details.  On  the  contrary,  he  has  oftener 
than  most  poets  given  pictures  discrepant  with  the 
bare  historical  facts.  As  Lowell  sings  of  him, — 

"  Let  his  mind  once  get  head  in  its  favorite  direction, 
And  the  torrent  of  verse  bursts  the  dams  of  reflection, 
While,  borne  with  the  rush  of  the  metre  along, 
The  poet  may  chance  to  go  right  or  go  wrong, 
Content  with  the  whirl  and  delirium  of  song." 

But  it  is  the  privilege  of  the  raconteur  to  embellish 
his  verse  with  the  flowers  of  imagination,  and  the 
strict  accuracy  of  the  historian  is  not  always  required 
of  the  poet  or  the  painter. 

Let  no  one  think  that,  in  giving  in  the  succeeding 
pages  the  authentic  prose  source  of  Whittier's  most 
interesting  idyls  and  ballads,  I  am  actuated  by  any 
impertinent  desire  to  make  manifest  wherein  the 
poet  has  or  has  not  followed  the  precise  facts  of 
his  text.  On  the  contrary,  in  glancing  behind  the 
268 


STORIES    IN    RHYME.  269 

scenes  at  the  apparatus  by  which  he  has  produced 
his  tableaux,  the  object  mainly  has  been  to  show  how 
genius  can  glorify  the  baldest  material  and  by  a  skill 
ful  mise  en  sdne  turn  it  into  an  immortal  work  of  art. 
The  scene  of  Whittier's  poem  "The  Cry  of  a  Lost 
Soul "  is  laid  in  the  great  tropical  forest-belt  of 
South  America.  The  traveler's  canoe  is  floating  down 
the  Amazon  by  night;  the  lamp  burns  dimly  at  the 
prow;  vast  submerged  forests,  intertwined  with  giant 
lianas  and  filled  with  animal  life,  stretch  wide  on 
either  hand;  and  overhead  sparkle  the  brilliant  con 
stellations  of  the  tropics.  Suddenly  a  cry,  "  as  of  the 
pained  heart  of  the  wood,"  startles  the  gliding  dream 
ers,  the  half-naked  Indian  at  the  oar  crosses  himself 
and  exclaims,  "A  lost  soul!  No,  Seiior,  not  a  bird. 
I  know  it  well."  But  the  voyager  lifts  his  eyes  to  the 
stars,  and  lo!  "the  Cross  of  pardon  lights  the  tropic 
skies": — 

" '  Father  of  all ! '  he  urges  his  strong  plea, 
'  Thou  lovest  all :  thy  erring  child  may  be 
Lost  to  himself,  but  never  lost  to  Thee  ! ' ' 

I  have  already  stated  that  this  poem  was  a  favorite 
with  the  late  Emperor  of  Brazil,  who  translated 
it  into  Portuguese.  He  also  sent  to  the  poet  some 
specimens  of  the  bird  whose  note  suggested  the  poem. 
The  myth  was  found  by  the  poet  in  Lieutenant  Will 
iam  L.  Herndon's  Government  Report  on  the  Explo 
ration  of  the  Amazon  in  1853  (ist  ed.,  Chap.  III.). 
Says  Lieutenant  Herndon:— 

"After  we  had  retired  to  our  mats  beneath  the 
shed  for  the  night,  I  asked  the  governor  if  he  knew 
a  bird  called  La  Alma  Perdida.  He  did  not  know  it 


270  JOHN    G.    WHITTIER. 

by  that  name,  and  requested  a  description.  I  whistled 
an  imitation  of  its  notes;  whereupon  an  old  crone, 
stretched  on  a  mat  near  us,  commenced,  with  ani 
mated  tones  and  gestures,  a  story  in  the  Inca  lan 
guage,  which,  translated,  ran  somehow  thus: — 

"An  Indian  and  his  wife  went  out  from  the  village 
to  work  their  chacra,  carrying  their  infant  with  them. 
The  woman  went  to  the  spring  to  get  water,  leaving 
the  man  in  charge  of  the  child,  with  many  cautions 
to  take  good  care  of  it.  When  she  arrived  at  the 
spring,  she  found  it  dried  up,  and  went  farther  to 
look  for  another.  The  husband,  alarmed  at  her  long 
absence,  left  the  child  and  went  in  search.  When 
they  returned,  the  child  was  gone;  and  to  their  re 
peated  cries,  as  they  wandered  through  the  woods  in 
search,  they  could  get  no  response  save  the  wailing 
cry  of  this  little  bird  heard  for  the  first  time,  whose 
notes  their  anxious  and  excited  imaginations  syl 
labled  into  pa-pa,  ma-ma  (the  present  Quichua  name 
of  the  bird).  I  suppose  the  Spaniards  heard  this 
story,  and,  with  that  religious  poetic  turn  of  thought 
which  seems  peculiar  to  this  people,  called  the  bird 
'The  Lost  Soul.' 

"  The  circumstances  under  which  the  story  was 
told,"  continues  Lieutenant  Herndon, — "the  beauti 
ful,  still  starlight  night,  the  deep  dark  forest  around, 
the  faint-red  glimmering  of  the  fire,  flickering  upon 
the  old  woman's  gray  hair  and  earnest  face  as  she 
poured  forth  the  guttural  tones  of  the  language  of  a 
people  now  passed  away,  —  gave  it  a  sufficiently 
romantic  interest  to  an  imaginative  man." 

The  dense  forests  of  the  tropics  are  full  of  mysteri 
ous  sounds.  Sometimes  in  the  midst  of  deep  silence 


STORIES   IN   RHYME.  271 

a  piercing  yell  or  scream  is  heard,  and  at  times  the 
sound  of  an  iron  bar  struck  against  a  hard  hollow 
tree.  The  natives  turn  pale  and  cross  themselves 
when  these  unaccountable  noises  are  heard.  The 
songs  of  many  of  the  birds  have  a  pensive  mysterious 
character.  For  example,  the  Goatsucker's  startling 
cry  of  hopeless  sorrow — "  Ha,  ha,  ha,  ha!  "  or  the  Sin 
ghalese  Devil  Bird's  magnificent  clear  shout,  ending 
in  "an  appalling  cry  like  that  of  a  boy  in  torture 
whose  screams  are  being  stopped  by  strangulation"; 
or  the  human-like  singing  of  the  Realejo,  or  Organ 
Bird;  or  the  sweet  minute-tolls  of  the  snow-white 
Campanero,  whose  pendulous,  feather-covered  crest, 
connected  with  the  palate,  is  a  spiral  tube  capable  of 
being  inflated  at  pleasure.  It  is  said  that  any  of 
these  weird  sounds  will  fill  the  soul  of  the  traveler 
with  a  strange  poetic  thrill,  at  once  poignant  and 
awesome. 

Mr.  Whittier's  studies  in  Norse  literature  have 
borne  fruit  in  several  ballads,  the  prettiest  of  which 
is  his  free  rendering  of  Christian  Winther's  "  Henrik 
and  Else  "  under  the  title  "  King  Volmer  and  Elsie." 
He  undoubtedly  had  his  attention  drawn  to  the  poem 
by  the  somewhat  close  translation  of  his  friends  the 
Howitts,  given  in  the  second  volume  of  their  "  Litera 
ture  and  Romance  of  Northern  Europe."  Whittier 
knows  nothing  of  Danish  (nor,  indeed,  of  any  other 
foreign  language, — except  that  he  has  a  school  smat 
tering  of  French  and  Latin);  and  we  are  therefore  to 
regard  "  King  Volmer  and  Elsie  "  as  a  poetical  para 
phrase  of  the  Howitts'  translation.  To  see  what 
magical  work  the  genius  of  a  true  poet  can  produce, 


272  JOHN    G.    WHITTIER. 

compare   the  following  prosaic  stanzas  by  the  How- 
itts   with  Whittier's  poem: — 

" '  Nay,  nay,  my  noble  Lord !     I  speak  the  truth  to  you : 
She  only  loves  her  Henrik,  and  to  him  will  be  true. 
Pure  as  the  slender  lily  will  she,  my  Else,  prove, 
Though  she  has  fired  your  bosom  with  such  a  flame  of  love.' 

" '  My  brave  good  man,  to-morrow  it  is  again  a  day; 
Then  will  I  woo  your  daughter  and  win  her  as  I  say.' 
Thus  spoke  the  wily  Lord  and  looked  upon  the  ground. 
The  other  Lords  smiled  to  themselves  as  they  stood  listen 
ing  round. 

"  When   sang  the   summer   lark  o'er  the   town  of  Vording- 

borough, 
And  the  weathercock  shone  golden  in  the  fresh  dawn  of  the 

morrow ; 

When  the  cool  and  gentle  breeze  came  wafting  o'er  the  corn, 
Were  heard  amid  the  leafy  wood  the  sounds  of  hound  and 

horn. 

"  Sweet  Else  sate  so  calmly  her  father's  door  beside, 
All  busy  at  her  wheel,  and  round  her  blossomed  wide 
The  tulip  and  the  peony,  the  box  and  mint  so  rare ; 
But  the  maiden  was  the  fairest  of  all  the  flowers  there. 

"  Her  fair  form  was  attired  in  a  dark  blue  woolen  gown, 
And  the  sleeves    of  snow-white  linen  unto  her  wrists  came 

down; 

And  busily  and  rapidly  her  little  foot  turned  round 
The  ever-whirling  wheel  with  its  cheerful  humming  sound. 

"  The  humming-bee  flew  by,  the  sun  shone  bright  and  warm, 
When  she  raised  her  head  and  shaded  the  sunshine  with  her 

arm  ; 

A  troop  of  gallant  hunters  came  on  with  thundering  speed, 
Over  hill  and  hollow,  and  right  across  the  mead. 


STORIES    IN    RHYME.  273 

"  Each  rider  was  apparelled  in  all  his  best  array, 
Yet  still  was  he  the  fairest  who  rode  the  charger  gray. 
He  glittered  like  the  sun  amid  that  splendid  train ; 
She  stopped  her  busy  wheel  and  he  checked  his  charger's  rein. 

"  '  'Mong  roses  here  thou  sittest,  thyself  a  rose  so  fair, 
Sweet  Else,  I  have  loved  thee,  yet  all  were  unaware.' 
Then  bowed  that  modest  maiden,  and  cast  to  earth  her  eye, 
For  bashfulness  and  terror  she  was  about  to  die." 

That  last  line  is  much  more  dramatic  and  truer  to 
nature  than  Whittier's,— 

"  She  dropped  a  lowly  courtesy  of  bashfulness  and  fear." 

Indeed,  it  must  be  admitted  that  the  strong  simpli 
city  of  the  Dane's  old-ballad  style  is  considerably 
weakened  by  the  diffusive  paraphrase  of  the  Amer 
ican,  in  many  stanzas,  just  as  the  prose  of  the  "  Morte 
d'Arthur  "  is  weakened  by  Tennyson.  The  gain, 
however,  in  each  case,  lies  in  the  increased  delicacy 
of  the  limning,  to  say  nothing  of  the  melody, — as,  for 
example,  in  the  two  following  stanzas  by  Whittier: — 

"  In  the  garden  of  her  father  little  Elsie  sits  and  spins, 
And,  singing  with  the  ear.ly  birds,  her  daily  task  begins. 
Gay  tulips  bloom  and  sweet  mint  curls  around  her  garden- 
bower, 
But  she  is  sweeter  than  the  mint  and  fairer  than  the  flower. 

"  About  her  form  her  kirtle  blue  clings  lovingly,  and,  white 
As  snow,  her  loose  sleeves  only  leave  her  small  round  wrists 

in  sight ; 

Below  the  modest  petticoat  can  only  half  conceal 
The  motion  of  the  lightest  foot  that  ever  turned  a  wheel." 

The   Volmer  of  the  poem    is  King  Valdemar  IV., 
18 


274  JOHN    G.    WHITTIER. 

surnamed  Atterdag.  It  was  a  frequent  saying  of  his, 
Morgen  er  after  en  Dag, — "  To-morrow  is  again  a  day." 
Valdemar  suffered  from  an  unfaithful  wife,  whom  he 
put  away.  Other  stories  of  him  may  be  found  in 
Thorpe's  "  Northern  Mythology." 

Christian  Winther  was  the  son  of  a  clergyman, 
and  himself  studied  theology.  He  died  in  Paris. 
Schweitzer,  in  his  recent  "  Geschichte  der  Altskandi- 
navischen  Litteratur,"  says  that  Winther  "  is  unique 
in  the  beauty  and  melody  of  his  verse  and  the  tender 
ness  and  animation  of  his  diction."  His  special  field 
was  Zealand  peasant  life  in  its  romantic  and  idyllic 
aspects.  He  is  spoken  of  as  "  der  Sanger  der  danischen 
meerbespulten  Inselnatur."  He  once  said  that  crea 
tion  was  with  him  purely  spontaneous  :  "  I  have  never 
striven  for  a  direct  object.  ...  I  consider  myself 
as  the  passive  agent  of  a  higher  Power,  as  an  instru 
ment  that  is  played  upon  by  the  hands  of  the  Uncon 
scious."  Schweitzer  translates  into  German  a  pretty 
poem  of  his  describing  a  summer  night's  storm  : — 
"  Kanarienvoglein  schlaft  im  Bauer, 

Es  piepst  ganz  sacht  der  kleine  Wicht, 

Und  nur  die  Uhr  dort  an  der  Mauer 

Ihr  unermiidlich  Tik-Tak  spricht, 

Ans  Fenster  Regengiisse  schlagen, 

Durch  Baum  und  Strauch  die  Windsbraut  fliegt ; 

Die  Blume  trinkt  rnit  Wohlbehagen, 

Und  leise  sich  im  Grase  wiegt." 

The  story  of  the  building  of  a  church  by  the  aid 
of  a  powerful  Troll  is  wide-spread  in  Scandinavian 
countries.  The  essentials  of  the  narrative  followed 
by  Mr.  Whittier  in  his  "  Kallundborg  Church  "  appear 
in  Thorpe's  "  Northern  Mythology,"  as  follows  : — 


STORIES   IN    RHYME.  275 

When  Esbern  Snare  was  building  Kallundborg 
church,  the  work  did  not  go  forward  as  fast  as  he 
wished.  So  he  accepted  the  offer  of  a  Troll  to  help 
him  : — 

"  '  Build,  O  Troll,  a  church  for  me 
At  Kallundborg  by  the  mighty  sea ; 
Build  it  stately,  and  build  it  fair, 
Build  it  quickly,'  said  Esbern  Snare." 

The  Troll  agreed,  on  condition  that  he  should  tell 
him  his  name  when  he  was  through,  or  forfeit  his 
heart  and  eyes.  Esbern  accepted  the  terms,  and  the 
work  went  bravely  on.  One  day,  when  all  was 
finished  except  one  pillar,  Esbern  Snare  was  wander 
ing  disconsolate  in  the  fields,  and,  chancing  to  lie 
down  on  UlshOi  Banke  to  rest,  he  heard  a  Troll-wife 
within  the  earth  say,  "  Be  still,  my  child  ;  to-morrow 
Fin  thy  father  will  come  and  give  thee  Esbern  Snare's 
eyes  and  heart  to  play  with."  (This  is  the  English 
of  the  motto  prefixed  to  Whittier's  poem.)  Esbern 
returned  home  overjoyed,  and  saluted  the  Troll  by 
name,  which  so  enraged  him  that  in  spite  he  imme 
diately  vanished  with  the  remaining  half-pillar  in 
his  arms. 

Trolls  always  lose  their  power  when  a  Christian 
man  calls  them  by  name.  The  above  legend  is  told 
of  St.  Olaf  and  his  building  the  first  church  in  Norway, 
and  of  the  building  of  the  cathedral  of  Lund,  opposite 
Copenhagen,  by  St.  Lawrence.  Kallundborg  church 
still  stands  in  the  town  of  that  name  on  the  west 
coast  of  Seeland,  its  five  towers  rendering  it  a  con 
spicuous  mark  for  miles  around.  The  legend  appears 
also  in  Jon  Arnason's  collections  of  Icelandic  folk 
tales  under  the  title,  "Who  built  Reynir  Church?" 


276  JOHN    G.    WHITTIER. 

In  the  Icelandic  version  the  forfeit  is  the  builder's 
son.  The  Troll-wife  sings, — 

"  Soon  will  thy  father  come  from  Reynir, 
Bringing  a  little  playmate  for  thee  here." 

The  farmer-builder  runs  home  and  says  to  his  work 
man,  "  Well  done,  friend  Finnur  !  how  soon  you  have 
finished  your  work  !  "  The  Troll  lets  fall  the  plank 
he  is  holding,  and  vanishes. 

In  Whittier's  ballad  "  The  Brown  Dwarf  of  Riigen  " 
he  has  just  hit  the  plain  simplicity  of  style  of  the 
genuine  folk-ballads.  He  took  only  the  main  idea 
from  Arndt's  Mdrchen,  and  seems  to  have  relied  on 
memory  for  the  rest,  there  being  little  correspondence 
in  the  details  of  the  poem  and  the  unusually  pretty 
prose  folk-tale.  This  fills  sixty  small  pages  in  Arndt, 
under  the  title  of  "  The  Nine  Hills  of  Rambin."  The 
story  goes  that  these  hills  were  formed  by  a  giant 
spilling  earth  out  of  a  rent  in  his  apron,  as  he  was 
going  to  bridge  over  the  chasm  that  separates  the 
Isle  of  Riigen  from  the  mainland  of  Pomerania. 
Under  the  hills  now  dwell  the  brown  little  earth-men, 
the  Trolls.  Johann  Dietrich  (not  Deitrich  as  Whit- 
tier  has  it),  the  hero  of  the  tale,  is  an  enterprising 
peasant  lad  who  goes  out  at  midnight  to  listen  for 
the  Trolls,  and  secures  one  of  their  little  caps  adorned 
with  a  tinkling  bell.  The  loss  of  his  cap  by  a  Troll 
compels  him  and  all  his  tribe  to  serve  the  finder  to 
the  utmost  of  their  power.  When  Dietrich  clapped 
the  cap  on  his  own  head,  it  revealed  to  him  the  little 
men  who  were  before  only  audible,  not  visible.  By 
warrant  of  his  cap  he  becomes  master  of  the  hill-folk, 
is  drawn  down  by  them  to  their  realm,  through  a 


STORIES    IN    RHYME.  277 

glass  door,  by  chains  fastened  to  a  great  silver  barrel. 
He  lives  in  great  magnificence  there  ten  years,  going 
to  school  and  learning  to  dance  wondrous  well  and 
to  make  little  silver  flowers  and  fruits  of  exquisite 
designs.  He  falls  in  love  with  a  sweet  maiden,  Lis- 
beth,  who  was  stolen  away  by  the  Trolls  from  the 
same  village  that  he  lived  in.  By  the  law  of  the 
unterirdischc  fellows  she,  with  other  children  they 
have  stolen,  is  to  stay  there  fifty  years  as  their  ser 
vant;  but  Dietrich  one  day  happens  to  split  a  crystal 
in  which  is  a  living  toad,  The  dwarfs  abhor  a  toad 
so  unutterably  that  they  are  completely  at  the  mercy 
of  him  who  holds  one  near  them,  and  are  thrown 
into  convulsions  before  they  even  see  it.  In  virtue  of 
the  toad-find,  the  lovers  and  the  other  youths  get 
away  with  several  wagonloads  of  gold  and  silver 
treasure,  besides  the  library  and  rich  furniture  of 
Dietrich's  room. 

"  They  left  the  dreadful   under-land  and  passed  the  gate  of 

glass ; 

They  felt  the   sunshine's   warm   caress,  they  trod  the    soft 
green  grass." 

All  march  down  the  mountain  in  the  early  morn 
ing,  and  enter  in  procession  the  village  of  Rambin, 
stared  at  and  followed  by  the  wondering  peasants. 
The  story  ends  with  the  happy  marriage  of  Dietrich 
and  Lisbeth. 

"  And  for  his  worth  ennobled,  and  rich  beyond  compare, 
Count  Deitrich  and  his  lovely  bride  dwelt  long  and  happy 
there." 

Probably  not  one  reader  in  twenty  thousand  of 
Whittier's  has  ever  seen  his  early  poem  "Moll  Pit 
cher."  The  two  copies  which  I  had  the  luck  to  dis- 


278  JOHN    G.    WHITTIER. 

cover  had  evidently  lain  undisturbed  for  fifty-seven 
years.  The  poem  is  by  no  means  worthless,  although 
it  is  not  worth  reprinting  as  a  whole.  It  is  in  part 
suffused  with  a  delicate  poetical  glow  which  later  was 
to  burst  into  the  fierce  flame  of  the  poems  of  freedom. 
The  motto  is  from  old  Cornelius  Agrippa,  the  German 
astrologer  :  "  If  the  seeker  be  of  an  haute  and  stom- 
achful  carriage,  and  maketh  merrie  of  the  wisdom  of 
thine  art,  thou  mayest  gain  an  empery  over  his  orgu 
lous  and  misbelieving  spirit,  by  some  full  strange  and 
terrible  misterie,  or  cunning  device,  whereat  he  may 
be  amort  with  doleful  misgivings."  Whittier  remarks 
in  a  prefatory  note  that  the  poem  "  is  the  offspring  of 
a  few  weeks  of  such  leisure  as  is  afforded  by  indis 
position,  and  is  given  to  the  world  in  all  its  original 
negligence."  He  playfully  says  that  it  is  not  pub 
lished  for  poetical  reputation  nor  for  money,  and 
thinks  it  would  puzzle  the  French  cook  who  made 
fifty  different  dishes  out  of  a  parsnip  to  make  meat  or 
drink  out  of  a  poetical  reputation.  He  changed 
his  mind  later  in  life  ;  when,  for  example,  Robert 
Bonner's  Sons  sent  him  a  cheque  for  $1,000  for  his 
little  ballad  "  The  Captain's  Well,"  published  in  the 
"  Ledger  "  in  1890. 

The  Moll  Pitcher  of  the  poem  must  not  be  con 
founded  with  the  gunner  Moll  of  Revolutionary  fame. 
The  two  were  contemporary  ;  the  fortune-teller  of 
Nahant  died  in  1813.  Whittier's  sketch  of  her  is  a 
piece  of  pure  fancy  and  bears  very  little  resemblance 
to  the  reality.  She  was  no  withered  and  malignant 
hag,  but  a  kind,  humane  woman,  of  striking  presence 
and  intellectual  features,  and  of  respectable  family. 
She  had  married  a  poor  man,  and  adopted  fortune- 


STORIES    IN    RHYME.  279 

telling  for  the  purpose  of  supporting  her  son  and 
three  daughters,  and  through  her  exertions  they  were 
enabled  to  make  good  marriages.  Among  her  descend 
ants  are  some  of  the  handsomest  women  in  Lynn. 
Her  fame  as  a  fortune-teller  spread  all  over  the  globe 
wherever  an  American  ship  sailed.  The  well-worn 
path  up  the  rocks  to  her  cottage  was  trod  by  the  feet 
of  sailors,  merchants,  lovers,  adventurers  of  every 
sort,  and  people  in  search  of  lost  or  stolen  goods. 
Upham,  in  his  Lectures  on  Witchcraft,  says  that  she 
was  "  the  most  celebrated  fortune-teller,  perhaps,  that 
ever  lived,"  and  it  is  thought  that  her  predictions 
influenced  the  destinies  of  thousands  of  persons.  In 
her  day  many  a  vessel  was  known  to  lie  idly  at  the 
wharf  for  weeks,  deserted  of  its  superstitious  crew  in 
consequence  of  her  adverse  predictions.  "  An  air  of 
romance  is  breathed  around  the  scenes  where  she 
practised  her  mystic  art,  the  charm  of  which  will 
increase  as  the  lapse  of  time  removes  her  history  back 
toward  the  dimness  of  the  distant  past.  Her  name  has 
everywhere  become  the  generic  title  of  fortune-tellers^ 
and  occupies  a  conspicuous  place  in  the  legends  and 
ballads  of  popular  superstition." 

Mary  Pitcher's  maiden  name  was  Dimond.  Her 
father  was  captain  of  a  small  sailing-vessel  of  Marble- 
head.  She  inherited  her  gifts  of  clairvoyance  and 
fortune-telling  from  her  grandfather,  who,  the  legend 
goes,  used  to  pace  up  and  down  in  the  churchyard 
during  violent  storms  and  direct  the  course  of  ships 
attempting  to  make  the  harbor.  His  voice  was  always 
audible  to  the  crew,  no  matter  how  far  off  they  might 
be.1 

1  Hobbs's  "  Lynn  and  its  Surroundings,"  1886. 


280  JOHN    G.    WHITTIER. 

For  fifty  years  the  "  witch  of  Nahant  "  (so  called) 
dwelt  in  her  little  cottage  under  the  shadow  of  High 
Rock,  on  what  was  then  a  lonely  road,  but  is  now 
Pearl  Street  in  a  thickly  inhabited  part  of  the  city. 
The  house  still  stands,  the  prospect  is  a  fine  one, 
embracing  a  view  of  rocky  Marblehead,  the  beaches 
of  Chelsea  and  Nahant,  and  "  the  islands  sleeping 
like  green-winged  sea-birds  in  the  distant  bay  of  Bos 
ton."  Over  the  gateway  of  the  house  opposite  hers, 
in  her  lifetime,  were  the  jaw-bones  of  a  whale,  form 
ing  a  Gothic  arch,  and  sea-faring  strangers  who 
wished  to  consult  her  were  often  heard  furtively 
inquiring  the  way  to  the  big  whalebones. 

Whittier's  portrait  of  Moll  Pitcher  was  painted  in 
the  land  of  dream  : — 

"  She  stood  upon  a  bare,  tall  crag 

Which  overlooked  her  rugged  cot — 
A  wasted,  gray  and  meagre  hag, 

In  features  evil  as  her  lot. 
She  had  the  crooked  nose  of  a  witch, 

And  a  crooked  back  and  chin ; 
And  in  her  gait  she  had  a  hitch, 
And  in  her  hand  she  carried  a  switch 

To  aid  her  work  of  sin, — 
A  twig  of  wizard  hazel,  which 
Had  grown  beside  a  haunted  ditch." 

The  notes  to  his  poem  show  that  he  had  only  read 
Upham's  two  pages  about  the  fortune-teller.  The 
true  portrait  lay  ready  to  his  hand  in  Lewis's  History 
of  Lynn  (1817),  and  would  have  furnished  a  richer 
material  to  the  flame  of  that  ardent  young  fancy  of 
his.  Moll  Pitcher  was  of  medium  height  (says  Lewis, 
who  knew  her),  good  form,  and  agreeable  manners, 


STORIES    IN    RHYME.  281 

her  forehead  broad  and  full,  hair  dark  brown,  nose 
inclining  to  long,  face  pale  and  thin  and  rather  intel 
lectual.  "  She  had  that  contour  of  face  and  expres 
sion  which,  without  being  positively  beautiful,  is 
nevertheless  decidedly  interesting, —  a  thoughtful, 
pensive,  and  sometimes  downcast  look,  almost 
approaching  to  melancholy — an  eye,  when  it  looked 
at  you,  of  calm  and  keen  penetration — and  an  expres 
sion  of  intelligent  discernment,  half  mingled  with  a 
glance  of  shrewdness."  Mrs.  Pitcher  was  of  a  benev 
olent  disposition,  as  I  have  said,  and  she  was  once 
known  to  rise  before  day  and  walk  two  miles  to  a  mill 
to  get  a  destitute  woman  meal  for  her  breakfast. 

As  to  the  source  of  her  power,  it  clearly  lay  in  her 
canny  native  shrewdness  in  reading  character  and  in 
that  indescribable  mind-reading  or  soul-piercing 
faculty  called  genius  which  she  possessed.  She 
would  usually,  or  always,  enter  into  conversation 
with  her  visitors,  and,  having  got  her  clew,  make  her 
prediction.  Her  visible  apparatus  of  divination — a 
cup  into  which  she  poured  tea  or  coffee,  for  the  pur 
pose  of  seeing  how  the  dregs  arranged  themselves — 
was  of  course  only  a  simulated  assistance,  a  sop  to 
the  credulous. 

The  legend  of  Whittier's  poem  is  of  a  maiden 
whose  sailor  lover  had  gone  on  a  long  voyage  in 
order  to  get  rich  and  come  back  and  marry  her.  In 
his  absence  her  mind  becomes  filled  with  gloomy 
forebodings,  and  she  goes  up  the  rocky  path  to  the 
witch's  cottage  to  consult  her.  Now  the  hag 
cherishes  a  secret  enmity  against  her,  and  determines 
to  have  her  revenge.  The  poem  opens  in  a  curious 
way: — 


282  JOHN     G.    WHITTIER. 

"  Ha,  ha— ha,  ha— ha,  ha  !— 

The  old  witch  laughed  outright — 
Ha,  ha— ha,  ha — ha,  ha  ! — 

That  cold  and  dismal  night 
The  wind  was  blowing  from  the  sea 
As  raw  and  chill  as  wind  might  be, — 
Driving  the  waves,  as  if  their  master, 
Towards  the  black  shore,  fast  and  faster,— 
Tossing  their  foam  against  the  rocks 

Which  scowl  along  yon  island's  verge, 
And  shake  their  gray  and  mossy  locks 

Secure  above  the  warring  surge. 

"  Keen  blew  the  wind,  and  cold, 

The  moon  shone  dim  and  faintly  forth. 
****** 
And  now  and  then  a  wan  star  burned, 
Where'er  its  cloudy  veil  was  rended — 
A  moment's  light,  but  seen  and  ended, 
As  if  some  angel  from  on  high 
Had  fixed  on  earth  his  brilliant  eye, 
And  back  to  heaven  his  glances  turned!  " 

The  maiden  meets  the  fortune-teller  on  the  path  to 
her  house. 

"  The  twain  passed  in — a  low  dark  room, 

With  here  and  there  a  crazy  chair, 
A  broken  glass — a  dusty  loom — 
A  spinning-wheel,  a  birchen  broom, 

The  witch's  courier  of  the  air, 
As  potent  as  that  steed  of  wings 

On  which  the  Meccan  prophet  rode 
Above  the  wreck  of  meaner  things 

Unto  the  Houris'  bright  abode. 
A  low  dull  fire  by  flashes  shone 
Across  the  gray  and  cold  hearthstone, 


STORIES    IN    RHYME.  283 


Flinging  at  times  a  trembling  glare 
On  the  low  roof  and  timbers  bare. 


"  In  contrast  strange, 
Within  the  fire-light's  fading  range 
The  stranger  stands  in  maiden  pride, 
By  that  mysterious  woman's  side. 
The  cloak  hath  fallen  from  her  shoulder^ 

Revealing  such  a  form  as  steals 
Away  the  heart  of  the  beholder 

As,  all  unconsciously,  it  kneels 
Before  the  beauty  which  had  shone 
Ere  this  upon  its  dreams  alone. 
If  you  have  seen  a  summer  star, 
Liquidly  soft  and  faintly  far, 
Beaming  a  smiling  glance  on  earth 
As  if  it  watched  the  flowret's  birth, 
Then  have  you  seen  a  light  less  fair 
Than  that  young  maiden's  glances  were. 
Dark  fell  her  tresses.     You  have  seen 

A  rent  cloud  tossing  in  the  air, 
And  showing  the  pure  sky  between 

Its  floating  fragments  here  and  there: 
Then  may  you  fancy  faintly  how 
The  falling  tress,  the  ringlike  curl, 
Disclosed  or  shadowed  o'er  the  brow 

And  neck  of  that  fair  girl. 
Her  cheek  was  delicately  thin, 

And  through  its  pure  transparent  white 
The  rose-hue  wandered  out  and  in, 

As  you  have  seen  th'  inconstant  light 

Flush  o'er  the  Northern  sky  of  night. 
Her  playful  lip  was  gently  full, 

Soft  curving  to  the  graceful  chin, 
And  colored  like  the  fruit  which  glows 
Upon  the  sunned  pomegranate  boughs ; 


284  JOHN    G.    WHITTIER. 

And,  oh,  her  soft-low  voice  might  lull 

The  spirit  to  a  dream  of  bliss, 
As  if  the  voices  sweet  and  bland 
Which  murmur  in  the  seraph-land 

Were  warbling  in  a  world  like  this ! 

"  Out  spoke  the  witch  :  '  I   know  full  well 

Why  thou  hast  sought  my  humble  cot. 
Come,  sit  thee  down :  the  tale  I  tell 

May  not  be  soon  forgot.' 
She  threw  her  pale  blue  cloak  aside, 

And  stirred  the  whitening  embers  up, 
And  long  and  curiously  she  eyed 

The  figures  of  her  mystic  cup  ; 
And  low  she  muttered,  while  the  light 
Gave  to  her  lips  a  ghastlier  white, 
And  her  sunk  eye's  unearthly  glaring 
Seemed  like  the  taper's  latest  flaring : 
'  Dark  hair — eyes  black — a  goodly  form — 

A  maiden  weeping — wild  dark  sea — 
A  tall  ship  tossing  in  the  storm — 

A  black  wreck  floating — where  is  he? 
Give  me  thy  hand  :  how  soft  and  warm 

And  fair  its  tapering  fingers  seem  ! 

And  who  that  sees  it  now  would  dream 
That  winter's  snow  would  seem  less  chill 
Erelong  than  these  soft  fingers  will? 
A  lovely  palm,  how  delicate 

Its  veined  and  wandering  lines  are  drawn  I 
Yet  each  are  prophets  of  thy  fate, — 

Ha  !  this  is  sure  a  fearful  one f. 
That  sudden  cross — that  blank  beneath, — 

What  may  these  evil  signs  betoken  ? 
Passion  and  sorrow,  fear  and  death, — 

A  human  spirit  crushed  and  broken! 
Oh,  thine  hath  been  a  pleasant  dream, 
But  darker  shall  its  waking  seem  ! ' " 


STORIES    IN    RHYME.  285 

The  words  of  the  fortune-teller  were  like  the  icy 
hand  of  death  upon  the  maiden's  heart: — 

"Like  the  mimosa  shrinking  from 

The  blight  of  some  familiar  finger — 
Like  flowers  which  but  in  secret  bloom, 

Where  aye  the  sheltering  shadows  linger, 
And  which  beneath  the  hot  noon  ray 
Would  fold  their  leaves  and  fade  away, — 
The  flowers  of  Love,  in  secret  cherished, 
In  loneliness  and  silence  nourished, 

Shrink  backward  from  the  searching  eye, 
Until  the  stem  whereon  they  flourished, 
Their  shrine,  the  human  heart,  has  perished, 
Although  themselves  may  never  die." 

The  girl  becomes  mildly  insane,  and  is  always 
standing  on  the  rocky  headland  of  Nahant  watching 
for  the  ship  of  her  lover.  One  day  it  comes  sailing 
into  the  bay,  with  the  beloved  one  aboard.  At  first 
she  does  not  recognize  him,  but  gradually  her  reason 
returns.  After  many  years  the  witch  dies  miserably 
in  her  hut,  attended  in  her  last  illness  by  the  daughter 
of  the  woman  she  once  so  deeply  wronged. 

The  opening  lines  of  Part  Two  are  certainly  finer 
than  many  a  poem  which  the  poet  has  retained  in  his 
works: — 

"  Nahant,  thy  beach  is  beautiful ! — 

A  dim  line  through  the  tossing  waves, 
Along  whose  verge  the  spectre  gull 

Her  thin  and  snowy  plumage  laves, 
What  time  the  summer's  greenness  lingers 

Within  thy  sunned  and  sheltered  nooks, 
And  the  green  vine  with  twining  fingers 

Creeps  up  and  down  thy  hanging  rocks. 


286  JOHN    G.    WHITTIER. 

Around,  the  blue  and  level  main ; 

Above,  a  sunshine  rich  as  fell 
Brightening  of  old  with  golden  rain 

The  isle  Apollo  loved  so  well ; — 
And  far  off,  dim  and  beautiful, 
The  snow-white  sail  and  graceful  hull, 

Slow  dipping  to  the  billow's  swell. 
Bright  spot !  the  Isles  of  Greece  may  share 
A  flowery  earth,  a  gentle  air  ; 
The  orange-bough  may  blossom  well 
In  warm  Bermuda's  sunniest  dell ; 
But  fairer  shores  and  brighter  waters, 
Gazed  on  by  purer,  lovelier  daughters, 

Beneath  the  light  of  kindlier  skies, 
The  wanderer  to  the  farthest  bound 
Of  peopled  earth  hath  never  found 

Than  thine, — New  England's  Paradise ! 
Land  of  the  forest  and  the  rock, — 

Of  dark  blue  lake  and  mighty  river, — 
'Of  mountains  reared  aloft  to  mock 
The  storm's  career,  the  lightning's  shock,— 

My  own  green  land  forever ! " 

Of  the  sailor  it  is  said  in  Part  Three, — 

"Oh,  he  hath  been  a  wanderer 

Beneath  Magellan's  moveless  cloud, 
And  where  in  murmurs  hoarse  and  loud 

The  Demon  of  the  Cape  was  heard ; 

And  where  the  tropic  sunset  came 

O'er  the  rich  bowers  of  Indostan, 

And  many  a  strange  and  brilliant  bird 
Shone  brighter  in  the  western  flame." 

The  last  lines  recall  Tennyson's  sumptuous  imagery 
in  the  apostrophe  to  Milton,  which  everyone  ought  to 
have  by  heart  : — 


STORIES    IN    RHYME.  287 

"  Me  rather  all  that  bowery  loneliness, 
The  brooks  of  Eden  mazily  murmuring, 
And  bloom  profuse  and  cedar  arches 
Charm,  as  a  wanderer  out  in  ocean, 
Where  some  refulgent  sunset  of  India 
Streams  o'er  a  rich  ambrosial  ocean  isle, 
And  crimson-hued  the  stately  palm-woods 
Whisper  in  odorous  heights  of  even." 

The  idea  of  Whittier's  "  Cassandra  Southwick"is 
worked  out  also  by  Longfellow  in  his  "  New  Eng 
land  Tragedies,"  his  Edith  Christison  corresponding 
to  Whittier's  heroine. 

Whittier,  as  usual,  has  availed  himself  of  poetic 
license.  His  imprisoned  Quaker  maiden  sees  the 
sunset  melt  through  the  prison  bars,  and  across  the 
floor  of  her  cell  falls  the  quiet  light  of  the  stars. 
Sleepless  she  watches,  thinking  of  her  schoolmates, 
sitting  by  the  warm  bright  hearth  of  home, — 

"  How  the  crimson  shadows  tremble  on  foreheads  white  and 

fair, 
On  eyes  of  merry  girlhood  half  hid  in  golden  hair." 

With  the  breaking  of  the  morn,  the  heavy  bolts  fall 
back,  and  the  sheriff  comes  and  leads  her  down  to 
the  wharves,  where  dark  and  haughty  Endicott,  and 
Rawson,  his  cruel  clerk,  ask  the  sea-captains  who  of 
them  will  take  her  away  to  sell.  Grim  silence  from 
the  bronzed  seamen;  she  feels  the  hard  hand  of  one 
of  them  press  her  own;  and  a  word  of  encourage 
ment  is  whispered  in  her  ear. 

"  And  when  again  the  sheriff  spoke,  that  voice,  so  kind  to  me, 
Growled  back  its  stormy  answer  like  the  roaring  of  the  sea, — 


288  JOHN    G.    WHITTIER. 

" '  Pile  my  ship  with  bars  of  silver,  pack  with  coins  of  Span 
ish  gold, 

From  keel-piece  up  to  deck-plank  the  roomage  of  her  hold, — 
By  the  living  God  who  made  me,  I  would  sooner  in  your  bay 
Sink  ship  and  crew  and  cargo  than  bear  this  child  away  ! ' 

****** 

"  I  looked  on  haughty  Endicott,  with  weapon  half-way  drawn  ; 
Swept  round  the  throng  his  lion  glare  of  bitter  hate  and 

scorn; 

Fiercely  he  drew  his  bridle-rein,  and  turned  in  silence  back, 
And  sneering  priest  and  baffled  clerk  rode  murmuring  in  his 
track." 

Whittier  found  the  quarry  for  his  poem  in  the  books 
of  George  Bishop  and  Joseph  Besse.  Bishop's  book, 
having  been  published  fifty  years  earlier  than  Besse's, 
may  be  considered  the  more  trustworthy.  With  a 
poet's  true  instinct  Whittier  has  chosen  the  musical 
name  of  Cassandra  for  his  heroine.  But  in  reality  it 
was  Cassandra  Southwick's  daughter  "  Provided  " 
and  her  son  Daniel  who  were  offered  for  sale.  She 
herself,  with  her  husband  Lawrence,  had  already 
been  banished  to  Shelter  Island,  and  another  son 
exiled  to  Europe.  Lawrence  and  Cassandra,  "an 
aged  grave  couple  "  of  Salem,  cultivators  of  the  soil, 
had  previously  been  imprisoned  for  entertaining  two 
Quaker  preachers.  The  husband,  wife,  and  son  were 
stripped  in  the  coldest  season  of  the  year  and  whipped 
with  a  knotted  thong  of  three  cords  that  cruelly  cut 
their  flesh,  "  the  executioner  measuring  his  ground, 
and  fetching  his  strokes  with  all  his  strength."  At 
another  time  they  were  imprisoned  in  a  dark  un- 
ventilated  room  during  all  of  harvest  time,  when  their 
crops  were  suffering. 


STORIES    IN    RHYME.  289 

"  And  now,"  says  Bishop,  "  I  shall  declare  the  exe 
cution  of  your  warrant  on  the  said  Daniel  Southwick 
and  Provided,  whom  Edmund  Batter  (a  cruel  wicked 
man,  one  fit  for  your  purpose)  sent  your  marshall  for, 
who  fetch'd  them  accordingly,  and  sought  out  for 
passage  to  Barbadoes,  to  send  them  there  for  sale,  as 
men  sell  goods,  to  fill  his  purse,  who  was  your  treas 
urer  ;  but  the  man  to  whom  he  spake  would  not 
carry  them  on  that  account  (a  thing  so  horrible  !), 
and  one  of  them,  to  try  Batter,  said  *  that  they  would 
spoil  all  the  vessel's  company,' laying  that  as  an  argu 
ment  why  he  should  not  carry  them.  '  Oh,  no,'  said 
Batter,  '  you  need  not  fear  that,  for  they  are  poor 
harmless  creatures,  and  will  not  hurt  anybody  '  (or 
words  to  this  purpose).  '  Will  they  not  so  ? '  said  the 
ship-master.  'And  will  ye  offer  to  make  slaves  of  so 
harmless  creatures?'  So  Batter  sent  them  home  again 
.  .  .  till  he  could  get  a  convenient  opportunity  to 
send  them  away." 

Another  of  Mr.  Whittier's  ballads  on  Quaker  sub 
jects  is  "  The  Exiles."  It  is  very  interesting  to  see 
how,  out  of  a  mere  word  of  history  and  a  bit  of  manu 
script,  he  has  built  up  so  long  and  capital  a  poem. 
Thomas  Macey  was  far  from  being  the  brave  man  he 
is  represented  to  be  in  the  verses,  as  the  following 
from  his  humble  and  deprecatory  letter  to  the  Gen 
eral  Court  proves: — 

"On  a  rainy  morning  there  came  to  my  house  Ed 
ward  Wharton  and  three  men  more.  The  said  Whar- 
ton  spoke  to  me,  saying  that  they  were  traveling 
eastward,  and  desired  me  to  direct  them  in  the  way 
to  Hampton,  and  asked  me  how  far  it  was  to  Casco 


2QO  JOHN    G.    WHITTIER. 

Bay.  I  never  saw  any  of  ye  men  afore  except  Whar- 
ton,  neither  did  I  require  their  names,  or  who  they 
were,  but  by  their  carriage  I  thought  they  might  be 
Quakers,  and  told  them  so,  and  therefore  desired 
them  to  passe  on  their  way,  saying  to  them  I  might 
possibly  give  offence  in  entertaining  them;  and  as 
soone  as  the  violence  of  the  rain  ceased  (for  it  rained 
very  hard)  they  went  away,  and  I  never  saw  them 
since.  The  time  that  they  stayed  in  the  house  was 
about  three-quarters  of  an  hour,  but  I  can  safely 
affirme  it  was  not  an  hour.  They  spake  not  many 
words  in  the  time,  neither  was  I  at  leisure  to  talke 
with  them,  for  I  came  home  wet  to  the  skin  immedi 
ately  afore  they  came  to  the  house,  and  I  found  my 
wife  sick  in  bed." 

Two  of  the  friends  harbored  by  Macey  that  day 
were  Robinson  and  Stevenson,  afterwards  hanged  on 
Boston  Common.  The  antiquaries  all  say  that  Macey 
did  not  fly  from  direct  persecution.  The  records  of 
Salisbury  and  of  the  State  only  show  that  he  sailed 
to  Nantucket  in  an  open  boat,  with  his  family  and 
two  friends,  not  to  escape  the  paltry  fine  of  thirty 
shillings  and  his  admonishment,  but  at  his  leisure,  in 
disgust  at  the  intolerance  of  the  Puritan  leaders. 
Whittier,  in  a  note  to  his  "Exiles"  in  the  "North 
Star"  anthology,  says  that  "a  quaint  description  of 
Macey's  singular  and  perilous  voyage,  in  his  own 
handwriting,  is  still  preserved."  It  is  said  that  during 
the  voyage  a  storm  arose,  and  Macey  sa4d  to  his  terri 
fied  wife,  "  Woman,  I  fear  not  the  witches  on  earth, 
nor  the  devils  in  hell."  His  place  of  refuge  was  Nan- 
tucket  Island,  nurse  of  great  women  and  brave  men, 
the  birthplace  of  Lucretia  Mott,  Maria  Mitchell,  and 


STORIES    IN    RHYME.  29! 

the  mother  of  Benjamin  Franklin.  The  island  had 
been  bought  as  a  place  of  refuge  in  1659  by  ten  men, 
among  whom  were  Whittier's  remote  kinsmen,  Chris 
topher  Hussey  and  Stephen  "  Greenleafe."  There 
were  no  other  white  men  on  the  island  when  they 
came.1 

"  She  came  and  stood  in  the  Old  South  Church, 

A  wonder  and  a  sign, 
With  a  look  the  old-time  sibyls  wore, 
Half-crazed  and  half-divine. 

Save  the  mournful  sackcloth  about  her  wound, 

Unclothed  as  the  primal  mother, 
With  limbs  that  trembled  and  eyes  that  burned 

With  a  fire  she  dared  not  smother." 

In  the  poem  of  which  the  foregoing  are  the  two 
opening  stanzas,  Mr.  Whittier  has,  with  the  freedom 
permitted  to  a  poet,  wrenched  the  actual  facts  for  a 
dramatic  end.  He  makes  it  appear  that  the  cause  of 
his  heroine's  appearing  in  the  Old  South  Church 
clothed  in  sackcloth  was  to  exhort  preacher  and  peo 
ple  to  religious  toleration.  But  the  original  accounts 
in  Besse,  including  the  warrant  for  her  arrest  and  the 
verbatim  report  of  the  trial,  prove  that  her  object  on 
that  occasion  was  simply  to  warn  the  people  of  the 
coming  of  the  black-pox.  But  as  she  had  addressed 
a  petition  to  the  Governor  that  he  would  not  put  in 
force  th'e  "  cruel  laws"  that  required  oath-taking 


1  Mr.  Whittier  refers  his  readers  to  James  S.  Pike's  book  on 
this  incident  of  Macey.  But  Pike  is  only  a  borrower,  and  is  not 
so  good  as  S.  J.  Macy  in  his  "Genealogy  of  the  Macy  Family," 
1868,  and  Hough,  "  Nantucket  Papers"  (Albany,  1856). 


2Q2  JOHN    G.    WHITTIER. 

even  from  Quakers,  and  since  during  her  trial  she 
incidentally  besought  him  not  to  persecute  the 
Friends  for  meeting  together  to  worship  God  after 
their  own  way,  the  poet  was  justified  in  slightly 
changing  the  facts  for  artistic  ends,  so  as  to  make  the 
central  idea  that  of  a  plea  for  religious  toleration. 
The  name  of  the  woman  was  Margaret  Brewster.  She 
had  come  to  Boston  from  the  Barbadoes,  perhaps  to 
collect  money  due  her, — and  hence  her  trouble  of  mind 
about  the  oath-taking.  Her  appearance  so  amazed 
and  frightened  the  congregation  that  it  was  said  sev 
eral  women  were  in  danger  of  miscarrying.  She  was 
kept  in  prison  for  a  month,  and  then  stripped  to  the 
middle,  tied  to  a  cart's  tail,  and  whipped  up  and 
down  the  town,  all  of  which  she  endured  with  a  forti 
tude  worthy  of  a  better  cause.  Her  fanatical  folly 
was,  however,  well  matched  by  the  unmanly  cruelty 
of  the  Governor's  sentence. 

Old  Judge  Sewall  in  his  Diary  (i.  43)  makes  a 
minute  of  the  scene  in  the  church  :— 

"July  8,  1677.  New  Meeting  House  [not  the  pres 
ent  Old  South,  but  its  predecessor]  Mane  :  In  Sermon 
time  there  came  in  a  female  Quaker,  in  a  Canvass 
Frock,  her  hair  disshevelled  and  loose  like  a  Periwigg, 
her  face  as  black  as  ink,  led  by  two  other  Quakers, 
and  two  other  followed.  It  occasioned  the  greatest 
and  most  amazing  uproar  that  I  ever  saw.  Isaiah 
i.  12,  14." 

The  venerable  ex-magistrate  William  Coddington 
wrote  to  a  friend  in  the  Barbadoes  as  follows  : — 

RALPH  FRETWELL! 

Friend, 
I  have  written  to  thee  already  concerning  the  apprehending 


STORIES    IN    RHYME.  393 

of  Margaret  Brewster,  and  committing  her  to  prison,  upon  her 
going  into  Thatcher's  meeting  in  sackcloth,  with  ashes  upon 
her  head,  and  barefoot,  and  her  face  blacked.  With  her  was 
Lydia  Wright  of  Long  Island,  and  Sarah  Miles  and  Elizabeth 
Bowers,  jun.,  and  John  Easton,  jun.,  who  took  her  riding-clothes 
and  shoes  when  she  went  into  the  house. 

At  the  trial  the  Governor  says, — 

"  Are  you  the  woman  that  came  into  Mr.  Thatcher's  meeting 
house  with  your  hair  fruzled,  and  dressed  in  the  shape  of  a 
devil  ?  " 

She  replies, — 

"  I  am  the  woman  that  came  into  priest  Thatcher's  house  of 
worship  with  my  hair  about  my  shoulders,  ashes  upon  my  head, 
my  face  colored  black,  and  sackcloth  upon  my  upper  garments." 

Another  poem  commemorating  a  brave  fight  for 
religious  freedom  is  "  Calef  in  Boston  :  1692."  Robert 
Calef,  merchant  of  Boston,  was  the  author  of  "  More 
Wonders  of  the  Invisible  World,"  published  to  counter 
act  the  influence  of  Cotton  Mather's  "  Wonders  of  the 
Invisible  World,"  and  especially  his  "  Brand  Pluckt 
from  the  Burning."  The  incident  that  brought  the 
two  men  to  a  clash  of  arms  was  the  case  of  Margaret 
Rule,  a  young  girl  supposed  to  have  been  bewitched, 
whose  experiences  are  detailed  in  Mather's  "  Brand 
Pluckt  from  the  Burning."  That  credulous  old 
prodigy  of  learning  says  in  this  booklet  that  "  the 
devils  have  with  most  horrendous  operations  broke 
in  upon  our  neighborhood."  Margaret  he  affirms  to 
have  been  "  most  prodigiously  handled  by  the  evil 
angels."  The  enchantments  she  endured  were  such 
as  being  stuck  with  invisible  pins,  pinched  black  and 
blue,  made  to  swallow  brimstone  by  the  devils,  and 


294  JOHN    G.    WHITTIER. 

drawn  up  by  them  to  the  garret  ceiling  with  such 
violence  that  she  could  scarcely  be  drawn  down 
again  by  a  strong  man.  She  described  herself  as 
being  haunted  by  eight  demons  led  on  by  a  black 
Master.  Whittier's  words,  "  Your  spectral  puppet- 
play,"  refer  to  the  pranks  of  these  demons,  who  would 
stand  at  one  side  of  the  room  and  stick  pins  into 
puppets,  or  dolls,  that  she  might  feel  the  pain  in  her 
own  flesh.  And  when  they  were  not  able  to  stick  the 
pins  into  the  "  Poppets  "  she  would  deride  them,  where 
upon  their  black  Master,  in  a  rage,  would  strike  them 
and  kick  them,  "  like  an  overseer  of  so  many  negro's, 
to  make  them  to  do  their  work."1  The  superstition 
that  persons  could  be  made  to  suffer  by  proxy  is  an 
old  one.  In  his  "  Wonders,"  Mather  tells  of  the  con 
sternation  of  some  workmen  when  they  discovered, 
in  holes  in  the  cellar  wall  of  a  house  belonging  to  a 
reputed  witch,  certain  "  poppets  "  made  up  of  rags 
and  hogs'  bristles,  with  headless  pins  in  them,  the 
points  being  outward.  The  delusion  is  common 
among  our  Southern  negroes  at  the  present  day. 
They  make  a  waxen  or  dough  image  of  their  enemy, 
and  then  pierce  it  with  pins  or  burn  it.  To  find  on 
his  door-sill,  says  Cable,  a  little  box  containing  a 
wax  heart  stuck  full  of  pins,  will  strike  terror  to  the 
heart  of  a  Louisiana  negro. 

Calef  was  a  man  much  in  advance  of  his  time, — 
brave,  clear-headed,  and  liberal.  A  fac-simile  of  his 
vigorous  signature  is  given  in  Drake's  History  of 
Boston,  p.  568.  He  was  one  of  those  who  were  bold 


1  Calef's  work,  original  ed.,  1700,  p.  9.     Other  editions,  as  Mr. 
Deane  has  shown,  are  very  inaccurate. 


STORIES    IN    RHYME.  295 

enough  to  brave  public  opinion  by  having  his  children 
inoculated  for  the  small-pox.  He  pressed  the  Mathers 
hard,  arraigned  their  methods  of  extracting  informa 
tion  from  Margaret  Rule,  and  was  even  arrested  for 
libel  by  them  ;  but  no  prosecutor  appeared,  and  he 
was  released.  His  book  was  burned  in  the  college 
yard  at  Cambridge  by  President  Increase  Mather. 

It  appears  from  Cotton  Mather's  "  Brand "  that 
Calef  was  not  the  only  incredulous  person  in  Boston. 
"The  learned  witlings  of  the  coffee-houses"  are 
sarcastically  described  by  Mather,  who  says  that,  if 
anyone  would  but  read  one  or  two  little  books  he 
names,  he  or  she  could  "give  a  far  more  intelligible 
account  of  these  appearances  than  most  of  these 
blades  can  give  why  and  how  their  tobacco  makes 
'em  spit ;  or  which  way  the  flame  of  their  candle 
becomes  illuminating." 

It  seems  to  be  an  indispensable  condition  of  poetical 
inspiration  with  Whittier,  in  writing  a  ballad,  that 
his  legend,  or  story,  shall  first  have  been  read  or 
heard  by  him,  and  then  laid  away  in  his  mind. 
When  it  lies  dim  and  somewhat  vague  in  his  mem 
ory,  it  assumes  the  hues  of  romance  ;  and  at  some 
happy  moment,  perhaps  after  the  lapse  of  years,  the 
finished  poem  is  detached,  like  a  ripened  pear  from 
its  bough.  It  may  be  historically  accurate  or  it  may 
not:  as  it  comes,  so  it  must  be;  he  is  only  the  scribe 
to  write  down  what  his  genius  dictates. 

Yet  it  must  not  be  thought  that  all,  or  perhaps 
any,  of  the  poems  of  the  Essex  minstrel  have  been  at 
once  transferred  from  the  mind  to  the  paper  in  their 
final  shape.  Many  of  his  poems  were  first  conceived 


296  JOHN    G.    WHITTIER. 

in  the  open  air,  and  jotted  down  in  rough  state  on 
such  paper  as  he  might  have  in  his  pocket-book. 
Mr.  Charles  E.  Hurd,  assistant  editor  of  the  Boston 
"  Transcript,"  has  the  original  MS.  of  Whittier's  "  My 
Playmate."  It  is  written,  with  many  erasures  and 
interlineations,  on  three  sides  of  an  old  letter. 

Whittier's  portrait  of  the  Puritan  Indian  fighter, 
John  Underhill,  in  the  poem  of  that  name,  is  con 
siderably  idealized.  The  real  man  bears  more  re 
semblance  to  Captain  Dalgetty,  in  the  "  Legend  of 
Montrose,"  than  to  the  frail  soldier-saint  pictured  by 
our  poet.  Underhill  was  banished  from  the  Massa 
chusetts  Colony  for  making  slighting  remarks  about 
the  authorities.  Some  two  years  before  this  sentence 
of  banishment,  he  had  been  publicly  questioned  and 
admonished  on  suspicion  of  incontinency  with  a 
neighbor's  wife. 

Underhill  retired  to  the  Cocheco  settlement  in 
Maine,  where  he  was  made  governor.  After  his  de 
parture  from  Boston,  proof  of  his  adultery  was  dis 
covered,  and  he  was  summoned  to  appear  and  stand 
his  trial.  He  parleyed  and  quibbled  and  hesitated  a 
long  time,  but  finally  appeared  one  day  in  1640,  and 
after  sermon,  upon  the  lecture  day,  the  pastor  of  the 
church  gave  him  leave  to  speak.  The  scene  that  fol 
lowed  is  both  amusing  and  dramatic.  It  was  a  spec 
tacle  that  caused  many  weeping  eyes.  His  penitence 
seemed  to  be  sincere;  but  the  piercing  eye  of  Win- 
throp  detected  its  superficial  nature,  notwithstanding 
his  "  blubbering  "  and  sobbing. 

"  He  came,"  says  Winthrop,  "  in  his  worst  clothes 
(being  accustomed  to  take  great  pride  in  his  bravery 
and  neatness),  without  a  band,  in  a  foul  linen  cap 


STORIES    IN    RHYME.  297 

pulled  close  to  his  eyes;  and,  standing  upon  a  form, 
he  did  with  many  deep  sighs  and  abundance  of  tears 
lay  open  his  wicked  course."  1 

This  scene  of  repentance  is  by  Whittier  laid  at 
Cocheco.  Underhill  afterwards  took  service  with  the 
Dutch.  The  Mantinenoc  Indians  gave  him  a  hun 
dred  and  fifty  acres  of  land  on  Long  Island,  which  is 
still  in  the  possession  of  his  descendants. 

Out  of  the  following  bit  of  bare  prose  in  Mather's 
"Magnalia  Christi  "  Whittier  has  constructed  his  bal 
lad,  so  rich  in  picturesque  incident,  "  The  Garrison  of 
Cape  Ann"  : — 

"Now,  in  the  time  of  that  matchless  war  [made  by 
"  the  spirits  of  the  invisible  world  upon  the  people  of 
New  England  "]  there  fell  out  a  thing  at  Gloucester 
which  falls  in  here  most  properly  to  be  related. 

"Ebenezer  Bapson,  about  midsummer,  in  the  year 
1692,  with  the  rest  of  his  family,  almost  every  night 
heard  a  noise  as  if  persons  were  going  and  running 
about  his  house.  But  one  night  being  abroad  late,  at 
his  return  home  he  saw  two  men  come  out  of  his 
door,  and  run  from  the  end  of  the  house  into  the  corn. 
But  those  of  the  family  told  him,  there  had  been  no 
person  at  all  there  ;  whereupon  he  got  his  gun,  and 
went  out  in  pursuit  after  them,  and  coming  a  little 
distance  from  the  house,  he  saw  the  two  men  start  up 
from  behind  a  log,  and  run  into  a  little  swamp,  saying 
to  each  other,  The  man  of  the  house  is  come  now,  else 
we  might  have  taken  the  house.  So  he  heard  nor  saw 
no  more  of  them. 


Winthrop's  History  of  Massachusetts,  ii.  13. 


298  JOHN    G.    WHITTIER. 

"  Upon  this  the  whole  family  got  up,  and  went  with 
all  speed  to  a  garrison  nearby  ;  and  being  just  got 
into  the  garrison,  they  heard  men  stamping  round  the 
garrison.  Whereupon  Bapson  took  a  gun  and  ran  out 
and  saw  two  men  again  running  down  a  hill  into  a 
swamp.  The  next  night,  but  one,  the  said  Bapson, 
going  toward  a  fresh  meadow,  saw  two  men  which 
looked  like  Frenchmen,  one  .of  them  having  a  bright 
gun  upon  his  back,  and  both  running  a  great  pace 
towards  him,  which  caused  him  to  make  the  best  of 
his  way  to  the  garrison,  where  being  come,  several 
heard  a  noise  as  if  men  were  stamping  and  running 
not  far  from  the  garrison."  1 

After  a  great  deal  of  shooting,  and  running,  and 
missing  fire,  both  on  the  part  of  the  beleaguered  and 
the  besiegers,  the  men  of  the  garrison-house,  "  con 
cluding  they  were  but  spectres,"  took  little  further 
notice  of  them. 

The  story  of  "  The  Swan  Song  of  Parson  Avery,"  as 
related  by  Whittier  with  his  usual  latitude,  is  told  by 
the  Rev.  Anthony  Thacher  in  a  letter  given  in  Increase 
Mather's  "Essay  for  the  Recording  of  Illustrious 
Providences."  The  persons  shipwrecked  were  in  all 
twenty-three  souls, — the  two  families  of  the  ministers, 
a  passenger,  and  four  sailors.  The  island  upon  which 
their  pinnace  went  to  pieces  is  off  Cape  Ann  and  the 
town  of  Rockport.  It  is  now  a  United  States  light 
house  station,  containing  about  eighty  acres  of  rocky 
soil.  It  is  a  pretty  trip  to  visit  the  lighthouses,  as 
the  writer  did  recently.  You  hoist  a  signal  on  the 


1  First  edition,  1702,  p.  82. 


STORIES    IN    RHYME.  299 

mainland,  and  one  of  the  keepers  will  sail  or  row 
over  from  the  island  and  take  you  across.  The  view 
is  magnificent.  The  storm  in  which  the  ship  was 
wrecked  was  of  terrible  force,  overturning  houses, 
tearing  up  and  twisting  off  thousands  of  trees,  and 
nearly  ruining  the  harvest. 

There  was  in  reality  no  dying  song  by  Parson  Avery, 
but  a  deal  of  praying  and  pious  discourse  back  and 
forth  betwixt  the  poor  man  and  his  cousin. 

The  letter  of  Thacher  is  a  classic  in  its  kind,  and  a 
few  extracts  will  be  appreciated.  The  style  is  pure 
Greek,  and  is  worthy  of  Defoe. 

"  I  must  turn  my  drowned  pen  and  shaking  hand," 
says  he,  "  to  indite  the  story  of  such  sad  news  as 
never  before  this  happened  in  New  England.  There 
was  a  league  of  perpetual  friendship  between  my 
cousin  Avery  ["note,"  says  Mather,  "  that  this  Mr. 
Avery  was  a  precious  holy  minister,  who  came  out  of 
England  with  Mr.  Anthony  Thacher"]  and  myself 
never  to  forsake  each  other  to  the  death,  but  to  be 
partakers  of  each  other's  misery  or  welfare,  as  also 
of  habitation  in  the  same  place."  They  were  solicited 
to  go  to  Marblehead  to  become  the  pastors  of  the 
place,  and  accordingly  set  sail  from  Ipswich,  with 
their  families  and  substance,  in  a  pinnace.  They  had 
rough  weather  and  were  two  days  in  getting  around 
Cape  Ann,  when  suddenly  in  a  fresh  gale  their  sails, 
"  being  old  and  done,"  were  split.  The  anchor  slipped, 
the  storm  burst  upon  them,  the  ship  was  beaten 
to  pieces,  and  about  daylight  all  were  drowned  except 
Thacher  and  his  wife,  who  were  washed  ashore.  The 
good  man,  after  narrating  all  these  woes,  continues: 
"  I  and  my  wife  were  almost  naked,  both  of  us,  and 


300  JOHN    G.    WHITTIER. 

wet  and  cold,  even  unto  death.  I  found  a  Knapsack 
cast  on  the  shore,  in  which  I  had  a  steel  and  flint  and 
powder-horn.  Going  further  I  found  a  drowned  goat, 
then  I  found  a  hat,  and  my  son  William's  coat,  both 
which  I  put  on.  My  wife  found  one  of  her  petti 
coats,  which  she  put  on.  I  found  also  two  cheeses 
and  some  butter,  driven  ashore.  Thus  the  Lord  sent 
us  some  clothes  to  put  on,  and  food  to  sustain  our  new 
lives  which  he  had  lately  given  unto  us;  and  means 
also  to  make  fire,  for  in  an  horn  I  had  some  gun 
powder,  which  to  my  own  (and  since  to  other  men's) 
admiration  was  dry;  so  taking  a  piece  of  my  wife's 
neckcloth,  which  I  dried  in  the  sun,  I  struck  fire,  and  so 
dried  and  warmed  our  wet  bodies,  and  then  skinned 
the  goat;  and  having  found  a  small  brass  pot,  we 
boiled  some  of  her.  Our  drink  was  brackish  water; 
bread  we  had  none.  There  we  remained  until  the 
Monday  following  [three  days  in  all].  When  about 
three  of  the  clock,  in  the  afternoon,  in  a  boat  that 
came  that  way,  we  went  off  that  desolate  island, 
which  I  named  after  my  name,  Thacher's  Woe;  and 
the  rock  [on  which  the  vessel  split]  Avery  his  Fall: 
to  the  end  that  their  fall  and  loss  and  mine  own 
might  be  had  in  perpetual  remembrance.  In  the  isle 
lieth  buried  the  body  of  my  cousin's  eldest  daughter, 
whom  I  found  dead  on  the  shore." 

Winthrop  in  his  Journal  says,  "The  general  court 
gave  Mr.  Thatcher  £26:  13:4:  towards  his  losses,  and 
divers  good  people  gave  him  besides.  The  man  was 
cast  on  shore  when  he  had  been  (as  he  supposed) 
a  quarter  of  an  hour  beaten  up  and  down  by  the 
waves,  not  being  able  to  swim  one  stroke,  and  his 
wife  sitting  in  the  scuttle  of  the  bark,  the  deck 


STORIES    IN    RHYME.  30! 

was  broke  off  and  brought  on  shore  as  she  stuck 
in  it." 

In  reading  for  the  sources  of  this  poem,  I  discovered 
that  Whittier  got  its  title  out  of  Cotton  Mather's 
"  Magnalia  Christi  "  (I.  ii.  3).  Speaking  of  Avery's 
prayer,  Mather  quotes  a  line— 

"  Carmina  jam  Moriens,  Canit  exequialia  Cygnus  " — 

which  had  been  found  in  the  chair  of  a  Dr.  Hottinger 
eight  days  before  he  was  drowned  (in  Lake  Leman, 
Switzerland).  This  Latin  line  about  the  song  of  the 
dying  swan  Mather  applies  to  Avery  :  "  Never  forget 
the  memorable  swan-song  which  Avery,  not  eight  days, 
but  scarce  eight  seconds  of  a  minute,  before  his  ex 
piration,  sang  in  the  ears  of  heaven." 

On  July  6,  1724,  Rev.  Christopher  Tappan,  of  New- 
bury,  wrote  to  Cotton  Mather  the  account  of  a  double- 
headed  snake,  or  Amphisbsena,  from  which,  as  given 
in  Joshua  Coffin's  History  of  Newbury,  Whittier  got 
the  materials  for  his  ballad  "  The  Double-headed 
Snake  of  Newbury."  Coffin  copied  it  from  the  orig 
inal  now  in  the  library  of  the  American  Antiquarian 
Society  at  Worcester,  and  it  is  found  nowhere  else  in 
the  literature  of  the  time:— 

"  Concerning  the  amphisbsena,  as  soon  as  I  received 
your  commands  I  made  diligent  enquiry  of  several 
persons,  who  saw  it  after  it  was  dead,  but  they  could 
give  me  no  assurance  of  its  having  two  heads,  as  they 
did  not  strictly  examine  it,  not  calling  it  the  least  in 
question  because  it  seemed  as  really  to  have  two 
heads  as  one.  They  directed  me  for  further  informa 
tion  to  the  person  I  before  spoke  of,  who  was  out  of 


302  JOHN    G.    WHITTIER. 

town,  and  to  the  persons  who  saw  it  alive  and  killed 
it,  which  were  two  or  three  lads,  about  twelve  or 
fourteen,  one  of  which  a  pert  sensible  youngster  told 
me  yt  one  of  his  mates  running  towards  him  cryed 
out  there  was  a  shake  with  two  heads  running  after 
him,  upon  which  he  run  to  him,  and  the  snake,  get 
ting  into  a  puddle  of  water,  he  with  a  stick  pulled 
him  out,  after  which  it  came  towards  him,  and  as  he 
went  backwards  or  forward,  soe  the  snake  would  doe 
likewise.  After  a  little  time,  the  snake,  upon  his 
striking  at  him,  gathered  up  his  whole  body  into 
sort  of  a  quoil,  except  both  heads,  which  kept  to 
wards  him,  and  he  distinctly  saw  two  mouths  and  two 
stings  (as  they  are  vulgarly  called),  which  stings  or 
tongues  it  kept  putting  forth  after  the  usual  manner 
of  snakes,  till  he  killed  it.  Thus  far  the  lad.  This 
day,  understanding  the  person  mentioned  before 
was  returned,  I  went  to  him,  and  asked  him  about 
the  premises.  He  told  me  he  narrowly  examined 
the  snake,  being  brought  to  him  by  the  lads  after 
it  was  dead,  and  he  found  two  distinct  heads,  one 
at  each  end,  opening  each  with  a  little  stick,  in  each 
of  which  he  saw  a  sting  or  tongue,  and  that  each 
head  had  two  eyes.  Throwing  it  down  and  going 
away,  upon  second  thoughts  he  began  to  mistrust 
his  own  eyes,  as  to  what  he  had  seen,  and  there 
fore  returned  a  second  time  to  examine  it,  if  pos 
sible,  more  strictly,  but  still  found  it  as  before. 
This  person  is  so  credible  that  I  can  as  much 
believe  him  as  if  I  had  seen  him  myself.  He  tells 
me  of  another  man  yt  examined  it  as  he  did,  but  I 
cannot  yet  meet  with  him. 

"  Postscript.     Before    ensealing    I    spoke   with    the 


STORIES   IN    RHYME.  303 

other  man,  who  examined  the  amphisbaena  (and 
he  is  also  a  man  of  credit),  and  he  assures  me  yt  it  had 
really  two  heads,  one  at  each  end,  two  mouths,  two 
stings  or  tongues,  and  so  forth." 

"  Far  and  wide  the  tale  was  told, 
Like  a  snowball  growing  while  it  rolled. 
The  nurse  hushed  with  it  the  baby's  cry ; 
And  it  served,  in  the  worthy  minister's  eye, 
To  paint  the  primitive  serpent  by. 
Cotton  Mather  came  galloping  down 
All  the  way  to  Newbury  town, 
With  his  eyes  agog  and  his  ears  set  wide, 
And  his  marvellous  inkhorn  at  his  side; 
Stirring  the  while  in  the  shallow  pool 
Of  his  brains  for  the  lore  he  learned  at  school, 
To  garnish  the  story,  with  here  a  streak 
Of  Latin,  and  there  another  of  Greek : 
And  the  tales  he  heard  and  the  notes  he  took, 
Behold  !  are  they  not  in  his  Wonder-Book  ?  " 

The  last  two  lines  seem  to  imply  that  the  story  of 
the  snake  can  be  found  in  the  Wonder-Book.  But  you 
will  search  in  vain  for  it  there.  There  is  no  gallop 
ing  down  to  Newbury  in  that  book;  but  there  are 
rich  "  tales," — such  as  that  of  the  black  creature  with 
the  body  of  a  monkey,  the  feet  of  a  cock,  and  the 
face  of  a  man,  which  was  going  to  fly  at  a  certain 
man,  and  when  he  cried  out,  "  The  whole  armour  of 
God  be  between  me  and  you,"  it  "  sprang  back,  and 
flew  over  the  apple-tree;  shaking  many  apples  off  the 
tree  in  its  flying  over.  At  its  leap,  it  flung  dirt  with 
its  feet  against  the  stomach  of  the  man." 

There  is  a  snake  (really  a  lizard)  which  is  called 
the  Amphisbaena,  but  is  found  only  in  tropical  Amer- 


304  JOHN    G.    WHITTIER. 

ica.  It  actually  has  the  habit  of  moving  backward 
or  forward  at  pleasure.  The  tail  is  thick  and  short, 
and  the  eyes  of  the  head  so  small  (it  lives  mostly 
under  ground)  that  it  is  almost  impossible  to  tell 
head  from  tail.  The  story  of  the  Newbury  Amphis- 
baena  is  as  well  attested  as  anything  can  be,  and  we 
may  suppose  the  creature  to  have  been  a  mon 
strosity  of  the  true  snake  species,  like  the  two- 
headed  chickens,  calves,  etc.,  which  occasionally 
occur. 

In  the  "  Tent  on  the  Beach"  the  locality  is  the  mouth 
of  Hampton  River  at  the  northern  extremity  of  Salis 
bury  Sands.  The  scene  of  two  of  the  ballads  sung  in 
the  tent  of  the  three  friends  is  also  here  ;  namely,  "  The 
Changeling"  and  "  The  Wreck  of  Rivermouth."  In  the 
latter  poem,  "  the  grisly  head  of  the  Boar,"  "  the 
green  bluff"  breaking  the  chain  of  sand-hills  north 
ward,  refers  to  the  wind-swept  and  treeless  headland 
known  a§  the  Boar's  Head.  It  is  a  heap  of  gravel- 
drift  with  bowlders  sticking  in  the  sides.  "  A  low 
reef,  stretching  out  towards  the  southeast,  resembling 
the  broken  vertebrae  of  some  fabled  sea-monster," 
says  Drake,  "  shows  in  what  direction  the  grand  old 
headland  has  most  suffered  from  the  unremitting 
work  of  demolition  carried  on  by  the  waves,  which 
pour  and  break  like  an  avalanche  over  the  blackened 
bowlders,  and  fly  hissing  into  the  air  like  the  dust 
rising  from  its  ruins." 

"And  Agamenticus  lifts  its  blue 

Disk  of  a  cloud  the  woodlands  o'er." 

Mount  Agamenticus  is  a  bold    landmark    for   sixty 


STORIES    IN    RHYME.  305 

miles  or  more  up  and  down  the  Atlantic  coast.  The 
mountain  rears  its  huge  form  almost  at  the  edge  of 
the  sea  in  Maine.  On  its  summit  is  said  to  be  buried 
Saint  Aspenquid,  a  converted  Indian,  who,  according 
to  tradition,  had  wandered  all  over  the  continent 
preaching  the  gospel  of  Christ.  Lowell  paints  Aga- 
menticus  in  his  "  Pictures. from  Appledore": — 

"  He  glowers  there  to  the  north  of  us, 
Wrapt  in  his  mantle  of  blue  haze, 

***** 

Him  first  on  shore  the  coaster  divines 
Through  the  early  gray,  and  sees  him  shake 
The  morning  mist  from  his  scalp-lock  of  pines." 

The  wedge  of  the  Boar's  Head,  as  I  saw  it  in  1890, 
was  a  superb  earth-poem,  its  level  surface  covered 
with  grass  and  flowers,  the  green  lines  of  the  sod 
merging  into  the  blue  of  the  sky, — not  a  discord  any 
where.  To  the  south,  a  mile  away,  are  always  seen 
the  Rivermouth  Rocks,  black  and  grisly  in  their  gar 
ments  of  sea-weed. 

The  Goody  Cole  who  figures  in  "  The  Changeling  " 
and  in  "  The  Wreck  of  Rivermouth  "  was  Eunice 
Cole  of  Hampton,  New  Hampshire,  who  lived  alone 
in  a  little  hovel  near  where  the  Hampton  Academy 
now  stands.  Once  when  she  was  imprisoned  the 
Court  ordered  a  padlocked  chain  to  be  attached  to 
her  leg.  She  died  alone  in  her  cottage,  and  it  was 
some  days  before  her  death  was  known;  whereupon 
she  was  hastily  buried,  and  a  stake  driven  through 
her  poor  body  to  exorcise  the  evil  spirit.  She  was  as 
much  feared  as  was  old  Susanna  Martin,  alluded  to 
in  "The  Witch's  Daughter."  Goody  Martin  lived 

20 


306  JOHN    G.    WHITTIER. 

near  the  Old  Ferry  in  Pleasant  Valley  on  the  Merri- 
mack. 

Goody  Cole  was  first  prosecuted  in  1656;  in  1657 
occurred  the  catastrophe  described  in  "  The  Wreck 
of  Rivermouth."  Whittier  puts  the  two  things 
together,  imagines  the  shipwreck  to  have  been  attrib 
uted  to  the  witch,  and  makes  a  ballad  which  for 
choice  English,  perfect  melody,  and  native  savor  can 
scarcely  be  surpassed.  The  prose  text  of  the  story  is 
merely  this  dry  paragraph,  referred  to  by  the  poet 
in  the  "  Atlantic  Monthly,"  where  the  poem  first 
appeared: — 

"A  boate  going  out  of  Hampton  River  was  cast 
away  and  the  psons  all  drowned  who  were  in  number 
eight:  Em.  Hilliar,  Jon.  Philbrick  and  An  Philbrick 
his  wife;  Sarah  Philbrick  there  daughter;  Alice  the 
wyfe  of  Moses  Cox,  and  John  Cox  his  sonne,  Robert 
Read;  who  all  perished  in  ye  sea  ye  2oth  of  the  8  mo. 
1657.'" 

The  convent  song  of  sister  Maria  in  Whittier's 
"  Hymn  of  the  Dunkers  " — 

"  Wake,  sisters,  wake  !  the  day-star  shines  ; 
Above  Ephrata's  eastern  pines 
The  dawn  is  breaking,  cool  and  calm. 
Wake,  sisters,  wake  to  prayer  and  psalm  !  " — 

somehow  recalls  that  little  snow-tinted  poem,  Tenny 
son's  "  St.  Agnes," — 


1  From  the  "  Norfolk  County  Records,"  quoted  in  vol.  i.,  No.  2, 
of  the  "  New  England  Historical  and  Genealogical  Register"  (not 
vol.  ii. ,  as  the  printers  got  it  in  the  "  Atlantic  "). 


STORIES    IN    RHYME.  307 

"  Deep  on  the  convent  roofs  the  snows 

Are  sparkling  to  the  moon," — 

a  poem  of  the  quality  of  a  diamond  or  a  lily,  in  which 
the  sentiment  of  vestal  purity  and  mediaeval  Chris 
tianity  is  embodied  in  flawless  music. 

About  a  hundred  years  ago  there  were  occasionally 
to  be  seen  in  the  streets  of  Philadelphia  certain 
strange  foreign-looking  persons  offering  country  prod 
uce  for  sale.  The  men  wore  no  hats,  which  were 
supplanted  by  the  Capuchin  hoods  of  the  long  white 
woolen  gowns  they  wore  (belted  at  the  waist).  The 
women  concealed  their  faces  when  they  walked.  The 
visages  of  the  men  were  pale,  their  beards  long  and 
shaggy,  and  their  hair  short.  In  summer  the  woolen 
dress  described  was  exchanged  for  one  of  linen. 

These  people  were  Dunkers  (or  Tunkers,  Taeuffer, 
i.  e.  Baptists)  from  Ephrata  in  Lancaster  County, 
Pennsylvania,  eleven  miles  out  from  Lancaster  town. 
Their  land  lay  in  a  beautiful  vale  between  two  wood- 
crowned  hills,  a  stream  flowing  through  the  vale. 
The  town  of  Ephrata  lay  on  the  southeastern  slope 
of  a  little  hill.  At  first  the  members  of  the  commu 
nity  dwelt  alone,  each  in  a  little  cottage,  that  one 
might  not  interrupt  the  devotions  of  another.  They 
were  celibates,  and  of  course  the  women  dwelt  apart. 
If  any  one  married,  he  or  she  left  the  order,  but  set 
tled  in  the  neighborhood.  They  touched  no  animal 
food,  had  worship  four  times  a  day,  and  slept  at 
night  upon  benches  with  little  wooden  blocks  for  pil 
lows  (reminds  one  of  the  Japanese  and  Chinese  head 
rests).  The  sisters  drew  beautiful  ornamental  texts 
in  Gothic  characters  (the  members  of  the  order  spoke 
German)  to  adorn  the  church  walls. 


308  JOHN    G.    WHITTIER. 

The  Dunkers  had  their  origin  in  Schartzenau, 
Germany.  Being  frowned  upon  and  shunned  there, 
they  separated  from  their  Pietist  brethren  and  came 
to  Pennsylvania  about  1719.  The  founder  of  the 
fraternity  at  Ephrata  was  Conrad  Beissel,  whose  self- 
chosen  fraternity  name  was  Friedsam  Gottrecht. 

About  1738  (the  date  prefixed  to  Mr.  Whittier's 
poem)  their  life  became  conventual,  and  the  church 
building  was  converted  into  a  nunnery  called  Kloster 
Kedar,1  another  building  being  erected  for  the  men. 
It  was  now  that  monastic  rules  were  adopted,  and 
the  Capuchin  dress  chosen. 

The  Dunkers  denied  original  sin,  reprobated  war 
and  all  kinds  of  violence,  and  denied  eternal  punish 
ment.  Affection  was  their  bond  of  union.  A  part  of 
the  title  of  one  of  their  hymn-books  reads,  "  The 
songs  of  the  solitary  and  forsaken  turtle-dove,  that 
is,  the  Christian  Church,  .  .  .  brought  into  spirit 
ual  rhymes,  by  a  Peaceable  pilgrim  wandering  to  silent 
eternity."  It  is  by  Friedsam  Gottrecht,  who  puns 
upon  his  Christian  name  in  the  italicized  word.  The 
Dunkers,  it  will  be  seen,  spoke  and  wrote  in  a  highly 
metaphorical,  mystical  style.  These  ascetics,  in  their 
ecstatic  reveries  and  fasts,  created  an  imaginary 
world,  or  heaven,  wherein  their  imaginations  ran  riot. 
They  believed  in  a  mystical  union  with  the  Redeemer: 
"  He  was  the  little  infant  they  carried  under  their 
hearts,  the  dear  little  lamb  they  dandled  on  their  laps."  2 


1  Name  chosen  in  allusion  to  their  agricultural,  or  pastoral,  life, 
Kedar  being  the  name  of  a  pastoral  tribe  descended  from  Ishmael, 
— "  the  glory  of  Kedar,"  "  the  tents  of  Kedar,"  "  the  flocks  of 
Kedar." 

5  Memoirs  of  the  Historical  Society  of  Pennsylvania  for  1827, 


STORIES    IN    RHYME.  309 

A  Pennsylvania  critic  of  Mr.  Whittier  affirms  that 
his  sketch  of  Meister  Eckhart,  in  "  The  Vision  of 
Echard,"  and  his  "  Hymn  of  the  Dunkers,"  are  both 
failures  as  historical  studies,  the  lyrical  element  over 
powering  the  historical.  He  thinks  a  Dunker  mystic 
would  not  have  singled  out  Rome  and  Geneva  as  the 
embodiment  of  the  ecclesiasticism  against  which  he 
protested,  and  says  very  truly  that  the  sect  "founded 
by  Alexander  Mack  "  never  suffered  from  the 
"prison"  and  "the  stake."  Whittier  catches  the 
Adventist  doctrine  of  the  sect,  but  misses  the  mystic 
theosophical  character  of  the  doctrine  as  held  by 
them. 

One  of  the  "  Tent  "  poems  is  a  blank-verse  piece  on 
"  Abraham  Davenport,"  the  text  for  which  was  taken 
from  old  Dr.  Dwight,  of  New  Haven.  "The  igth 
day  of  May,  1780,"  says  he,  "  was  a  remarkable  dark 
day.  Candles  were  lighted  in  many  houses ;  the 
birds  were  silent  and  disappeared,  and  the  fowls 
retired  to  roost.  The  legislature  of  Connecticut  was 
then  in  session  at  Hartford.  A  very  general  opinion 
prevailed  that  the  day  of  judgment  was  at  hand. 
The  House  of  Representatives,  being  unable  to  trans 
act  their  business,  adjourned.  A  proposal  to  adjourn 
the  Council  was  under  consideration.  When  the 
opinion  of  Colonel  Davenport  was  asked,  he  answered, 
'  I  am  against  an  adjournment.  The  day  of  judg 
ment  is  either  approaching  or  it  is  not.  If  it  is  not, 
there  is  no  cause  for  an  adjournment  ;  if  it  is,  I 


ii.  130  ff.  This  seems  to  be  the  sole  printed  account  of  this  curious 
order. 


310  JOHN    G.    WHITTIER. 

choose  to  be  found  doing  my  duty.     I  wish  therefore 
that  candles  may  be  brought.'  "  * 

"  And  there  he  stands  in  memory  to  this  day, 
Erect,  self-poised,  a  rugged  face,  half  seen 
Against  the  background  of  unnatural  dark, 
A  witness  to  the  ages  as  they  pass 
That  simple  duty  hath  no  place  for  fear." 

Abraham  Davenport's  grandfather  was  one  of  the 
founders  of  New  Haven,  a  friend  of  the  Regicides, 
Goffe  and  Whalley,  and  first  suggested  the  establish 
ment  of  the  college  now  called  Yale  :  he  was  known 
by  the  Indians  as  "  so  big  study  man." 

When  Abraham  Davenport  was  well  stricken  in 
years,  and,  as  Chief  Justice  of  the  Court  of  Common 
Pleas,  was  hearing  a  case  at  Danbury,  the  summon 
ing  hand  of  death  was  suddenly  laid  upon  him.  But, 
firm  and  unflinching  to  the  last,  he  refused  to  leave 
the  Court  until  he  had  given  the  charge  to  the  jury, 
and  called  their  attention  to  an  article  in  the  testi 
mony  that  had  escaped  the  notice  of  the  counsel  on 
both  sides  ;  he  then  retired  to  his  home,  and  was 
soon  afterward  found  dead  in  his  bed. 

Whittier  got  the  nucleus  of  his  "  Bridal  of  Penna- 
cook  "  from  Book  I.,  Chapter  XL,  of  that  dry  old 
chronicle  of  border  wars  and  Indian  history,  the 
"  New  English  Caanan,"  written  by  that  dissolute 
and  jolly  Roger  Wildrake,  Thomas  Morton.  In  this 
book  Morton  gives  an  account  of  the  May  Pole  of  his 
Merry  Mount,  and  the  far  from  innocent  festivities 
connected  with  it.  For  the  writing  of  this  book  he 

'Quoted  in  Barber's  Connecticut  Historical  Collections,  p.  403. 


STORIES    IN    RHYME.  311 

was  imprisoned  for  a  year  by  the  Puritan  authorities, 
and  fined. 

In  his  "Prophecy  of  Samuel  Sewall "  Whittier 
speaks  of  Newbury  as  Sewall's  "  native  town,"  but,  says 
Tyler,  Sewall  was  born  at  Horton,  England.  He  also 
describes  Sewall  as  an  "  old  man,"  propped  on  his 
staff  of  age,  when  he  made  his  famous  prophecy;  but 
Sewall  was  then  forty-five  years  old.  Samuel  Sewall 
was  one  of  the  witchcraft  judges,  and  the  author  of 
the  quaint  diary  recently  published.  It  was  said  that 
his  wife — Hannah  Hull,  daughter  of  a  goldsmith  in 
Boston — received  her  own  weight  in  silver  pine-tree 
shillings  as  a  wedding  portion. 

"  The  Golden  Wedding  of  Longwood  "  was  cele 
brated  in  the  rich  old  rural  town  of  Kennett,  Chester 
County,  near  Philadelphia  : — 

"  Again  before  me,  with  your  names,  fair  Chester's  landscape 

comes, 

Its   meadows,   woods,  and    ample  barns,  and  quaint,  stone- 
builded  homes. 

The  smooth-shorn  vales,  the  wheaten   slopes,  the    boscage 

green  and  soft, 
Of  which  their  poet  sings  so  well  from  towered  Cedarcroft." 

The  poem  was  written  for  the  fiftieth  anniversary 
of-  the  marriage  of  John  and  Hannah  Cox,  Quakers. 
Whittier,  with  Bayard  Taylor  who  lived  near  by, 
often  visited  at  the  house  of  these  Friends.  Lowell, 
too,  speaks  of  the  "  Arcadia  of  Friends  in  Chester 
County,"  and  of  the  beautiful  homes  to  which  he  was 
welcomed  there. 


312  JOHN    G.    WHITTIER. 

"  Conductor  Bradley,  (always  may  his  name 
Be  said  with  reverence  !)  as  the  swift  doom  came, 
Smitten  to  death,  a  crushed  and  mangled  frame, 

"  Sank  with  the  brake  he  grasped  just  where  he  stood 
To  do  the  utmost  that  a  brave  man  could. 


"  Lo  !  the  ghastly  lips  of  pain, 
Dead  to  all  thought  save  duty's,  moved  again: 
'  Put  out  the  signals  for  the  other  train  ! ' ' 

Following  the  date-clew  given  by  the  poet,  I  look 
up  an  old  file  of  newspapers  and  find  in  the  New 
York  "  Times,"  May  9,  1873,  an  obscure  item,  such  as 
we  see  dozens  of  every  year, — how  two  cars  of  a 
freight-train  were  thrown  from  the  track  at  Tolles 
Station  on  the  Hartford,  Providence,  and  Fishkill 
Railroad,  and  Conductor  George  F.  Bradley  mortally 
injured.  Heroic  Conductor  Bradley  found  his  poet, 
and  a  hundred,  a  thousand,  others  just  as  heroic  did 
not  :  that  is  all  the  difference.  It  is  the  privilege  of 
genius  to  touch  with  immortal  lustre  what  is  ordi 
narily  regarded  as  a  dry  prosaic  idea. 


APPENDIX, 
i. 

REFERENCE  TABLE  FOR  DATES. 

1807.  Whittier  born,  December  17. 
1821.  Reads  Burns  for  the  first  time. 
1824.  Writes  poem  on  William  Penn. 
Uncle  Moses  dies. 

1826.  Poem,  "  The  Deity,"  published. 

1827.  Attends  Haverhill  Academy  six  months. 
Teaches  school  at  West  Amesbury. 

1828.  Another  six  months'  term  at  Haverhill  Academy. 
Editor  of  the  "  American  Manufacturer  "  in  Boston. 

In  April,  Garrison  invites  subscriptions  for  the  purpose 
of  publishing  a  volume  of  Whittier's  poems,  to  enable 
him  to  pursue  his  studies  longer.  Project  not  realized. 

1829.  June,  1829,  to  July,  1830,  at  home. 

1830-31.  Edits  the  "  New  England  Weekly  Review  "  at  Hart 
ford,  Connecticut. 

First     book     published     at     Hartford, — the     little 
"  Legends  of  New  England." 

1831.  Visits  his  father  in  his  last  sickness  at  the  Haverhill 

farm.    Father  dies  in  June. 

1832.  Gives  up  editorship  of  "  New  England  Weekly  Review." 

From  1832  to  1837  manages  the  farm  in  Haverhill. 
Writes  for  "  Buckingham's  New  England  Magazine." 
In  1832  publishes  "  Moll  Pitcher,"  and  edits  the  "  Lit 
erary  Remains  of  J.  G.  C.  Brainard." 

1833.  Publishes  "Justice  and  Expediency." 

Delegate  to  the  National  Anti-slavery  Convention  at 
Philadelphia. 

1834.  Corresponding  Secretary  of  the  Haverhill  Anti-slavery 

Society. 


314  APPENDIX. 

1835.  Mobbed  at  Concord,  New  Hampshire. 

Chosen  member  of  the  Massachusetts  State  Legislature. 

1836.  Publishes  "  Mogg  Megone." 
Editor  of  Haverhill  "  Gazette." 

1837.  In  New  York  as  Secretary  of  the  National  Anti-slavery 

Society.  Visits  John  Quincy  Adams,  and  edits  that 
statesman's  Letters  to  his  Constituents  ;  also  edits 
Miss  Harriet  Martineau's  "Views  of  Slavery."  First 
collection  of  his  poems  issued  by  Isaac  Knapp. 

1838.  Joseph  Healey,  of  Philadelphia,  publishes  a  collection  of 

his  poems.  From  1838  to  1840  Whittier  is  in  Phila 
delphia,  editing  the  "  Pennsylvania  Freeman."  Burn 
ing  of  Pennsylvania  Hall  in  1838. 

1839.  In  December,  1839,  still  in  Philadelphia  (see  Preface  to 

"The  North  Star"). 

1840.  Edits  a  booklet  of  poems  called  "  The  North  Star." 
Farm  sold  ;  family  removes  to  Amesbury. 

1841.  Helps   edit  the  "American  and   Foreign   Anti-slavery 

Reporter  "  (a  monthly)  in  New  York  City. 

1842.  Temporary   editor   of  the   "Emancipator"   in   Boston 

(during  December,  1841,  and  January,  1842). 

1843.  "  Lays  of  my  Home  "  published. 

1844.  In   Lowell,  editing  the  "  Middlesex  Standard."     First 

English  edition  of  his  poems  published  in  London ; 
introduction  by  Elizur  Wright. 

1845.  Publishes  "The  Stranger  in  Lowell." 

1846.  Aunt  Mercy  Hussey  dies.     "  Voices  of  Freedom  "  pub 

lished  in  Philadelphia  by  Thomas  S.  Cavender. 

1847.  "  Supernaturalism     in     New     England."       1847-1850, 

associate,  or  corresponding,  editor  of  the  "  National 
Era." 

1849.  "Voices  of  Freedom"  (Philadelphia);  Mussey's  com 
plete  edition  of  his  poems  published  in  Boston ; 
"  Leaves  from  Margaret  Smith's  Journal." 


APPENDIX.  315 

1850.  "Songs  of  Labor";  "Old  Portraits  and  Modern 
Sketches";  "  Little  Eva  ";  collected  poems  published 
in  London. 

1853.  "The  Chapel  of  the  Hermits,"  "  A  Sabbath  Scene." 

1854.  "  Literary  Recreations,"  "  Maud  Muller." 

1856.  "  The  Panorama." 

1857.  Mother  died  ;  Ticknor's  blue  and  gold  edition  of  poems ; 

"  Skipper  Ireson." 

1860.  Chosen  Member  of  Electoral  College ;  publishes  "  Home 

Ballads,  and  Other  Poems." 

1861.  Death  of  his  sister,  Mary  Whittier  Cartland. 

1863.  "  In  War  Time,  and  Other  Poems  ";  "Barbara  Frietchie  " 

published   in   October  in  "  Atlantic  Monthly  "  ;  com 
plete  edition  of  his  works. 

1864.  Again  member  of  the  Electoral  College;  death  of  Eliza 

beth  Whittier,  September  3. 

1866.  "Snow-Bound";    Prose  Works,  2  Vol.  edition;     "Na 

tional  Lyrics  "  published. 

1867.  "  The  Tent  on  the  Beach." 

1868.  "  Among  the  Hills."     Also  an  illustrated  edition  of  his 

poems.     "  Whittier  College  "  founded  at  Salem,  Iowa. 

1869.  Illustrated  edition  of  "  Ballads  of  New  England. " 

1870.  "  Miriam,  and  Other  Poems." 

1871.  "  Child-Life  :  A  Collection  of  Poems." 

1872.  "  The  Pennsylvania  Pilgrim." 

1873.  "  Child-Life    in   Prose " ;  Journal    of    John    Woolman 

edited. 

1874.  "  Mabel  Martin." 

1875.  "  Songs  of  Three  Centuries  " ;  "  Hazel  Blossoms." 

1876.  "  Centennial  Hymn  "  published. 

1877.  Seventieth  birthday  celebrated  in  Boston  ;  founding  of  a 

Whittier  Club  in  Haverhill. 


316  APPENDIX. 

1878,  "  The  Vision  of  Echard." 

1881.  "The  King's  Missive." 

1882.  Letters  of  Lydia  Maria  Child   edited ;  "  Bay  of  Seven 

Islands  "  published. 

1883.  Death  of  Matthew  Franklin  Whittier,  January  7. 

1884.  Portrait   of   Whittier  unveiled    in   Friends'   School   in 

Providence,  Rhode  Island. 

1885.  September  10,  Reunion  of  Haverhill  Academy  gradu 

ates.     "  Poems  of  Nature  "  published. 

1886.  "St.  Gregory's  Guest,  and  Recent  Poems,"  published  ; 

dedicated  to  General  S.  C.  Armstrong. 

1887.  Birthday  celebrated  by  school  children  throughout  the 

country  ;  Boston  "  Advertiser's  "  Whittier  Memorial 
issue  ;  social  greetings  and  gifts  of  friends  at  Oak 
Knoll. 

1890.  Birthday   again   celebrated   at   Oak    Knoll.       For  his 

ballad  "  The  Captain's  Well  "  receives  $1,000  from 
"  New  York  Ledger." 

1891.  Eighty-fourth   birthday  celebrated   at   home  of  Joseph 

Cartland  in  Newburyport,  Mr.  Whittier  being  present. 

1892.  Death  of  Whittier  at  Hampton  Falls,  N.  H.,  September 

7.  Publication  of  his  posthumous  volume,  "  At  Sun 
down,"  dedicated  to  E.  C.  Stedman. 


II. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY. 

NOTES  ON  RARE  AND  EARLY   EDITIONS.1 

COLLECTED  WORKS. 

New  England  Legends  in  Prose   and  Verse. 

Hartford  :   Hanmer  &  Phelps,  1831. 

A  slender  volumet  issued  in  February  by  the  publishers  of 
the  "  New  England  Weekly  Review,"  which  Whittier  had 
been  editing.  It  is  his  first  book,  and  is  now  suppressed.  A 
copy  was  sold  in  Boston  for  $14.  The  poems  are  juvenile  in 
character.  Titles  of  some  of  the  sensational  prose  tales  are 
"  The  Midnight  Attack,"  "  The  Rattlesnake  Hunter,"  "  The 
Human  Sacrifice,"  and  "  The  Unquiet  Sleeper."  "  The  Spectre 
Ship  "  is  a  tale  in  verse. 

Poems  written  during  the  Progress  of  the 
Abolition  Question  in  the  United  States, 
between  the  years  1830  and  1838.  Boston. 
Isaac  Knapp,  25  Cornhill,  1837. 

Very  rare,  and  quite  a  pretty  booklet ;  the  first  separate  col 
lection  of  his  poems.  Price  37 ^  cts.  "  Issued  in  compliance 
with  the  urgent  request  of  a  large  number  of  the  admirers  of 
Whittier "  (p.  97).  Garrison  is  thought  to  have  been  the 


1  All  the  information  imparted  here  has  been  derived  at  first 
hand  from  the  original  copies  and  first  editions. 


318  APPENDIX. 

editor.  Underwood  says  published  in  '38  ;  so  perhaps  there 
were  other  editions.  Most  of  the  poems  were  republished  in 
the  "  Emancipator"  of  1839  and  1840.  The  frontispiece  is  a 
fine  copper-plate  engraving,  "  just  received  from  London  " ;  it 
shows  Britannia  rebuking  a  planter  who  is  whipping  a  slave, 
and  illustrates  a  stanza  in  Cowper's  "  Morning  Dream," — a 
poem  which  is  prefixed  to  the  text.  Facing  each  other  on  fly 
leaves  are  two  medallions  of  slaves  in  chains,  one  a  man  and 
the  other  a  woman.  Each  poem  is  followed  by  a  pretty  tail 
piece, — a  branch  of  a  tree  with  fruit,  or  a  sheaf  of  grain,  etc., 
emblems  of  peace.  The  weak  poem  "  To  George  Bancroft, 
Esq.,  Author  of  the  Worcester  Democratic  Address,"  not  after 
wards  reprinted  ;  nor  the  fine  verses  on  "  Governor  McDuffie  "; 
nor  a  poem  by  Elizabeth  Whittier,  "  Our  Countrymen." 

Ballads,  Anti-slavery,  etc.     Joseph  Healey:  Phil 
adelphia,  1838.     180  pp. 

Issued  November  i,  Whittier  being  then  editor  of  the  "  Free 
man  "  in  Philadelphia.  Healey  was  the  financial  agent  of  the 
National  Anti-slavery  Society.  The  motto  is  from  Coleridge : 
"  I  concluded  this  was  not  the  time  to  keep  silence  ;  for  Truth 
should  be  spoken  at  all  times,  but  more  especially  at  those 
times  when  to  speak  Truth  is  dangerous." 

Lays  of  my  Home,  and  Other  Poems.    Wm.  D. 

Ticknor.     Boston,  1843. 

Issued  in  May ;  the  dedication,  "  To  John  Pierpont,"  is  in 
cluded  in  the  recent  complete  poetical  works.  Twenty-three 
poems,  chiefly  non-slavery. 

Voices    of    Freedom.       Philadelphia :     Thos.    S. 
Cavender  ;    Boston:    Waite,   Pierce  &  Co.;  New 
York:  Wm.  Harned.    5th  ed.,  1846,  192  pp. 
"  Several  years  having  elapsed  since  the  first  edition,"  the 

preface  states.      Underwood  describes   an  ed.  with  the  title 

"Voices  of   Freedom.      From    1833  to   1848,"  published  by 

Lindsay  &  Blakiston  :  Philad.,  1849. 


APPENDIX.  319 

Poems  by  John  G.  Whittier.     Boston  :  Benjamin 
B.  Mussey  &  Co.,  1849. 

This  is,  on  the  whole,  the  most  beautiful  eel.  of  the  poems  ; 
a  second  ed.  appeared  in  1850;  copyrighted  1848  ;  an  ed.  from 
same  plates  appeared  in  1856  (new  title-page)  by  Sanborn, 
Carter,  &  Bazin  of  Boston.  The  exquisite  steel  plates  (by  H. 
Billings),  the  heavy  paper,  and  large  type  are  explained  by  the 
fact  that  Mussey  was  a  Free-Soiler,  and  took  a  pride  in  seeing 
the  laureate's  verses  in  rich  dress ;  he  died  in  1857.  The  plates 
were  bought  by  Ticknor  &  Fields.  Mussey  was  a  pill-seller  as 
well  as  a  publisher.  Whittier  was  overcome  with  amazement, 
and  thought  the  man  was  demented,  when,  one  day,  as  they  were 
walking  in  Cornhill,  Mussey  offered  him  $500  for  the  copyright 
of  his  poems  and  a  percentage  on  the  sales.  However,  he 
closed  with  his  offer,  and  was  still  more  astonished  at  the  large 
sales  of  the  hitherto  ill-dressed  and  somewhat  obscure  children 
of  his  brain. 

Other  noteworthy  collections  are  the  little  2-vol. 
blue  and  gold  ed.  of  Ticknor  &  Fields,  1857,  and  the 
4-vol.  ed.  of  1888  by  Houghton,  Mifflin  &  Co.  The 
latter  forms  part  of  a  superb  7-vol.  ed.  of  Whittier's 
complete  works,  with  four  admirable  portraits,  hun 
dreds  of  new  illustrative  notes  by  Whittier,  as  well  as 
new  prefaces,  entirely  new  arrangement,  or  grouping, 
of  the  poems,  table  of  first  lines,  inclusion  of  many 
early  poems  which  had  been  dropped  out  or  forgotten, 
and  a  collection  of  fugitive  prose  pieces.  This  ed.  is 
worth  all  the  others  put  together,  for  the  scholar. 
The  present  volume,  however,  contains  a  half-dozen 
of  Mr.  Whittier's  most  interesting  poems  that  are  not 
included  in  this  Boston  edition  of  the  poems,  besides 
many  valuable  letters  and  prose  articles  not  included 
in  the  volumes  of  prose  in  said  edition. 


320  APPENDIX. 

SINGLE    POEMS. 

Moll  Pitcher.      Boston  :  Carter  &  Hendee,  1832. 

The  two  copies  I  have  seen  are  in  pamphlet  form,  and 
probably  the  whole  ed.  was  of  that  character.  The  brochure 
is  printed  by  Joseph  H.  Buckingham  of  Newburyport;  no 
author's  name  anywhere  given  ;  28  pp.  in  all,  including  a  page 
of  notes.  Poem  dedicated  to  Eli  Todd  of  Hartford;  motto 
from  Cornelius  Agrippa ;  prefatory  note  by  Whittier.  Nearly 
a  column  quotation  was  made  from  the  poem  by  Garrison  in 
his  "Liberator,"  May  8,  1840,  eight  years  after  its  publication. 

There  is  a  poor  dramatic  poem,  "  Moll  Pitcher,"  by  a  certain 
J.  S.  Jones.  It  was  put  on  the  boards  at  the  original  National 
Theatre  in  Boston  in  1839,  the  part  of  Moll  being  played  by 
Mrs.  William  Pelby.  The  play  was  given  in  every  State  in 
the  Union  which  then  permitted  dramatic  performances.  The 
plot  is  entirely  different  from  Whittier's,  though  the  heroine 
appears  as  the  conventional  witch,  with  red  cloak,  spectacles, 
crutch,  and  black  cat,  much  as  in  Whittier's  poem. 

Mogg  Megone.      Boston  :  Light  &  Stearns,  No.   i 

Cornhill.     1836. 
A  tiny  32mo  of  69  pp. 

Little  Eva ;  Uncle  Tom's  Guardian  Angel.    Boston 

and  Cleveland,  1852.     4to,  4  pp. 
Music  by  Emilio  Manuel ;  present  title  "  Eva." 

A   Sabbath   Scene.      Boston  :    Ticknor,   Reed,   & 

Fields,  1853. 

A  thin  volume,  illustrated  by  Baker,  Smith,  and  Andrew,  in 
quaint  Sunday-school  style. 

Snow-Bound  is  translated  in  Karl  Knortz's 
"  Zwei  Amerikanische  Idyllen,"  with  the  title  "  Ein- 
geschneit,"  "  Snowed  In." 


APPENDIX.  321 

THE    NORTH    STAR. 

The  North  Star :  The  Poetry  of  Freedom  by 
her  Friends.  Philadelphia:  Printed  by  Mer- 
rihew  &  Thompson,  No.  7  Carter's  Alley,  1840. 

Cream-colored  covers ;  motto  from  William  Penn  ;  preface 
dated  "  Philadelphia,  I2th  mo.,  1839."  That  it  was  edited  by 
Whittier  is  certain.  In  looking  over  an  old  bundle  of  "  Eman 
cipators  "  I  lighted  on  a  notice  of  the  book  by  the  editor, 
Joshua  Leavitt,  in  his  issue  of  Jan.  9,  1840.  This  was  the  very 
time  when  Whittier  was  his  contributor  and  editorial  assistant. 
Says  Mr.  Leavitt :  "  That  it  is  edited  in  the  best  taste,  and  by 
one  whose  real  worth  does  not  need  to  sound  its  own  praises, 
may  be  certainly  known  from  the  exclusion  of  the  following 
lines,  which,  we  happen  to  know,  were  written  expressly  for 
the  work,  but  excluded  by  the  editor."  The  lines  contain  a 
prophecy  that  has  long  since  been  fulfilled  : — 

TO   JOHN  G.  WHITTIER. 

BY  JONATHAN    BLANCHARD. 

Thy  soul  is  gentle,  WHITTIER— yet  thy  mind 
Was  made  to  startle  and  instruct  mankind  : 
And  tyrants  dread  thee,  gentle  though  thou  art — 
A  lamb  in  temper  with  a  lion's  heart  ! 
Yet  so  averse  to  scourge  the  sins  of  men, 
That  others'  sufferings  only  move  thy  pen. 
If  thou  alone  hadst  felt  the  oppressor's  wrong, 
The  world  had  lost  the  lightning  of  thy  song. 
God,  in  thy  genius,  crowned  thee  with  the  art 
To  pour  thyself  upon  the  human  heart — 
Bid  thine  own  soul  to  thrill  along  thy  line, 
An  inbreathed  fervor  only  not  divine. 
New  England  yet  shall  hail  her  gifted  son, 
When  Freedom's  work  (and  Slavery's)  is  done  ; 
And  own  thy  fire,  caught  from  her  pilgrim-grave* 
21 


322  APPENDIX. 

Hath  taught  the  world  that  poets  are  no  slaves  ! 
The  slave  shall  hail  thee,  when  his  sorrows  end, 
In  nature,  as  by  name  and  birth,  a  FRIEND. 

In  a  long  notice  of  the  book  in  the  "  Liberator,"  Garrison 
says :  "  Right  glad  are  we  to  find  that  the  anti-slavery  women 
of  Philadelphia,  at  their  recent  fair,  have  procured  the  publica 
tion  of  a  beautiful  little  volume,  all  glittering  with  light,  called 
'  The  North  Star  :  The  Poetry  of  Freedom  by  her  Friends.' 
We  are  indebted  for  a  copy  of  it,  superbly  bound,  to  our  es 
teemed  friend  Lucretia  Mott,  and  have  perused  its  contents 
with  a  keen  relish  and  perfect  satisfaction." 

The  preface  is  in  Whittier's  style  exactly,  and  is  dated  Quaker 
fashion.  So  is  the  longest  poem  in  the  book,  "  ALgypt :  a  Frag 
ment  from  an  Unpublished  Poem  "  (•'  Philadelphia,  Eleventh 
mo.,  1839").  I  had  attributed  this  to  Whittier,  from  internal 
evidence  of  italicizing,  etc.,  before  I  read  Garrison's  notice  in 
which  he  also  says  he  ventures  to  attribute  it  to  him.  The 
only  poem  accredited  to  Whittier  in  the  contents  is  "The 
World's  Convention  "  ;  out  his  "  Exiles  "  ballad  here  appears  for 
the  first  time.  Among  the  contributors  are  Lucy  Hooper  (the 
Brooklyn,  Long  Island,  young  lady  on  whose  subsequent 
untimely  death  Whittier  has  a  poem),  Elizabeth  Whittier, 
James  T.  Fields,  and  W.  L.  J.  Kiderlen,  who  has  a  poem  in 
German, — "  Der  Sterbende  Sclave." 

Those  who  have  examined  the  old  files  know  that  very  many 
of  Whittier's  poems  appeared  anonymously  at  first,  and  it 
would  have  been  inconsistent  with  his  habits  to  acknowledge 
the  editing  of  an  anthology  which  contained  three  or  four 
poems  of  his  own.  And,  then,  the  printing  of  that  "  yEgypt  " 
poem  probably  gave  him  qualms  afterwards. 

Justice  and  Expediency.— Whittier  published  his 
pamphlet  "  Justice  and  Expediency  "  in  June,  1833  (500  copies). 
In  September  it  appeared  as  No.  4  of  Vol.  I.  of  the  "  Anti- 
slavery  Reporter"  (monthly),  the  organ  of  the  American  Anti- 
slavery  Society,  and  is  advertised  as  for  sale  by  the  single 


APPENDIX.  323 

copy  or  by  the  thousand.  This  is  evidently  the  Tappan  issue 
of  5,000  copies.  The  "  Anti-slavery  Reporter  "  was  merged 
with  an  "  American  Anti-slavery  Reporter,"  and  the  name 
was  afterwards  revived  by  Lewis  Tappan  in  the  "  American 
and  Foreign  Anti-slavery  Reporter,"  which  Whittier  helped 
edit  in  1840. 

Notes. — In  1856,  C.  H.  Brainard,  of  Boston,  published  on 
one  sheet  the  portraits  of  Whittier,  Seward,  Sumner,  John  P. 
Hale,  H.  W.  Beecher,  Salmon  P.  Chase,  and  Horace  Greeley, 
styling  them  the  "Seven  Champions  of  Freedom.  Rather 
an  ill-assorted  group  !  Whittier's  portrait  occupies  the  place 
of  honor,  in  the  centre. 

Poems  of  Whittier  especially  autobiographic  are  "  Burns," 
"  To  J.  T.  F.,"  "  My  Birthday,"  "  My  Namesake,"  "  My 
Triumph,"  "My  Playmate,"  and  "  Benedicite." 

The  first  volume  of  that  mild  and  dainty  annual,  the 
"  Liberty  Bell,"  contains  five  stanzas  by  Whittier,  which,  like  a 
number  of  his  early  poems,  he  has  wisely  dropped.  The  last 
remark  applies  to  "  Reflections  of  a  Belle,"  in  "  Liberator," 
Sept.  10,  1831  (quoted  from  "  New  England  Weekly  Review  "), 
to  several  pieces  in  "  The  Yankee,"  and  early  verses  in  his 
"Legends  of  New  England."  The  "  Liberator,"  Sept.  2,  '64, 
has  a  letter  by  Whittier  in  defence  of  General  Fremont,  who 
was  nominated  for  the  Presidency  at  same  time  with  Lincoln. 
Whittier  cherishes  the  kindliest  feelings  for  the  old  standard- 
bearer  of  freedom  in  '56. 

In  1846  Whittier  published  a  poem  on  the  Mexican  War. 
The  entire  piece  is  given  in  the  "  Literary  World  "  of  Boston, 
March  22,  '84.  The  following  stanza  is  the  only  one  of  any 
particular  merit : — 

"  Ghostly  hands  in  Tenochitlan 

Strike  the  old  Aztec  battle-drum  ; 
Sharp  of  beak  and  strong  of  talon, 
Lo  !  Mexitli's  eagles  come  !" 

The  writer  was  told  in  Amesbury  by  a  friend  of  Mr.  Whit- 


324  APPENDIX. 

tier's  that  his  nephew,  Mr.  Pickard,  was  one  day  passing  the 
ash-barrel  in  the  yard,  when  he  noticed  a  roll  of  wet  crumpled 
manuscript.  Smoothing  it  carefully  out,  he  discovered  to  his 
joy  that  it  was  the  original  draft  of  "  Snow-Bound, "  written  on 
fragments  of  paper  pasted  together.  He  spread  it  out  in  the 
orchard  to  dry,  but  on  returning  after  an  hour's  absence  found 
his  treasure  gone !  The  poet  himself  had  found  it,  and  de 
stroyed  it. 

For  an  inscription  to  be  engraved  below  the  cliff-carved 
Indian  of  Preston  Powers  in  Colorado,  Mr.  Whittier  wrote  in 
1891  these  strong  lines: — 

"  The  eagle  stooping  from  yon  snow-blown  peaks, 
For  the  wild  hunter  and  the  bison  seeks 
In  the  changed  world  below,  and  finds  alone 
Their  graven  semblance  in  the  eternal  stone." 


INDEX. 


"  Abraham  Davenport,"  310. 

"Advertiser,  Boston,"  196,198. 

Allen,  Ethan,  140. 

Amesbury,  176. 

Anti-slavery  Convention  of  '33,  84-89. 

"Apology,"  etc.,  poem  (Concord,  N.  H.),  97,  98. 

Armies  of  North,  Songs  sung  in,  8. 

"Atlantic  Monthly,"  7. 

Bantum,  the  Quaker,  15. 

"  Barbara  Frietchie,"  232. 

Barbour,  John  M.,  183. 

Bartlett,  Wm.  Francis,  119. 

Batchelder,  Stephen,  18. 

Bearcamp,  174,  175. 

Birthdays,  7oth,  195;   7$th,  196;   77th,  196;    80^,197,198; 

82d,  199. 

Birthplace,  37~39- 
Boar's  Head,  304,  305. 
Bores,  193. 

"Branded  Hand,"  117. 
"  Bridal  of  Pennacook,"  310. 
Bright,  John,  203. 
Brown,  John,  135,  240,  252. 
"  Brown  of  Ossawatomie,"  240,  252. 


326  INDEX. 

"  Brown  Dwarf  of  Riigen,"  276. 
Browning,  115. 
"  Burial  of  Barber,"  116. 
Burleigh,  Wm.  A.,  71  (note). 
Burns,  Robert,  41. 

"  Calef  in  Boston,  1692,"  293. 

Carriage  Builders'  Association,  190. 

"  Cassandra  Southwick,"  287. 

Chalkley,  Thos.,  103. 

"  Changeling,  The,"  304,  305. 

Child,  Lydia  Maria,  70,  74,  133,  136. 

Clarke,  James  Freeman,  77,  119  (note). 

Clarke,  Willis  Gaylord,  56. 

Coffin,  Joshua,  39,  88. 

"  Conductor  Bradley,"  311. 

Concord,  N.  H.,  mob,  91-96;  poem  on,  97. 

Collyer,  Robert,  41,  43,  171. 

"  Cry  of  a  Lost  Soul,"  269. 

Cushing,  Caleb,  145. 

Dzctamnus,  9. 

Dom  Pedro,  204,  269. 

"  Double-headed  Snake,"  301. 

Downing,  Hon.  Geo.  P.,  83. 

Egypt  Exploration  Fund,  190. 
Emery,  Mrs.  Sarah,  Reminiscences,  14. 
Emerson,  R.  W.,  201. 
Emerson,  Moses  E.,  49. 
Everett,  Edward,  99,  102. 
"  Exiles,  The,"  289. 

Fields,  Jas.  T.,  208. 
Folsom,  Abigail,  71  (note). 
Foster,  Stephen,  70. 
Fullerton,  Wm.  M.,  186  (note). 


INDEX.  327 

Garrison,  Wm.  Lloyd,  45-48,  62,  63,  67-69,  80;  mobbed,  90; 

in,  147-169,  207. 

Garrison,  Wendell  Phillips,  128  (note). 
"  Garrison  of  Cape  Ann,"  297. 
Garrison  house,  36. 
Goody  Martin,  305,  306. 
Goody  Cole,  305,  306. 
"  Golden  Wedding  of  Longwood,"  311. 
Grimke  sisters,  104. 

Hale,  Edward  Everett,  128. 
Hall,  Arethusa,  54,  55. 
Haverhill  Academy  reunion,  196. 
Hawthorne,  137,  202. 
Hazard,  Rowland  G.,  78. 
Higginson,  T.  W.,  1 10,  171. 
Howitt,  Mary,  23,  203. 
Holmes,  Dr.  O.  W.,  201. 
Hurd,  Chas.  E.,  296. 
Hutchinson  family,  129,  130. 
"  Hymn  of  the  Dunkers,"  306. 

"  Ichabod,"  113. 

"  In  the  '  Old  South,'  "  291. 

Ireson,  Skipper,  226. 

"  John  Underhill,"  296. 

"  Justice  and  Expediency,"  63-65. 

"  Kansas  Emigrants"  Song,  8,  127,  128. 

Kallundborg  Church,  274. 

Kennedy,  Wm.  Sloane,  Sr.,  76  (note),  79. 

Kelley,  Abby,  70. 

Kent,  George,  93. 

"  King's  Missive,"  262. 

"  King  Volmer  and  Elsie,"  271. 

Korner,  58. 


328  INDEX. 

"  Laus  Deo,"  134. 
Liberty  Party,  146-169. 
Lincoln,  Abraham,  130—133. 
Livermore,  Rev.  S.  T.,  29. 
Livermore,  Harriet,  29-36. 
Longfellow,  73,  144,  200,  201. 
Lord,  Wm.  W.,  115. 
Lowell,  Jas.  R.t  201,  205. 
Lucknow,  254. 

Martineau,  Harriet,  70,  90. 

McDuffie,  poem  to,  121,  123. 

Mercy,  Aunt,  22,  25,  26. 

Mobs,  89-109. 

"  Mogg  Megone,"  62. 

Moll  Pitcher,  277. 

Morse,  Aunt,  15. 

Mott,  Lucretia,  88,  108,  159,  178. 

"  My  Playmate,"  296. 

"  National  Era,"  147. 

Negroes,  80-84 ;  burning  of,  78  (note) ;  blackballed,  81, 

Oak  Knoll,  176,179-186. 

Palatine,  243. 

Parrot,  Whittier's,  192. 

Pennsylvania  Hall  burned,  102-108. 

Piatt,  Gen.  J.  J.,  134. 

Pillsbury,  Parker,  72. 

"  Pipes  at  Lucknow,"  254. 

Prang,  Louis,  194. 

"  Prophecy  of  Samuel  Sewall,"  311. 

"Quakers  Are  Out,"  168. 
Quakers  in  the  War,  138,  139. 
Quincy,  Edmund,  162. 


INDEX. 

"  Rantoul,"  119. 
Rogers,  N.  P.,  154. 
Ronge,  Jean,  120,  121. 

Scotch    dialect,  poem  in,  by  Whittier,  50. 

Shaw,  Col.,  136. 

"  Song  of  the  Vermonters,"  140. 

Spofford,  Harriet  Prescott,  12,  202 

Stedman,  E.  C,  7. 

Stanhope,  Lady  Hester,  31-35. 

"  Stanzas  for  the  Times,"  124-126. 

Street,  Hon.  Jackson  B.,  52. 

"  Swan  Song  of  Parson  Avery,"  298. 

Taylor,  Bayard,  7,  204. 
Thaxter,  Celia,  12. 
"  Tent  on  the  Beach,"  7,  304. 
"  Telling  the  Bees,"  220. 
Thayer,  Prof.  J.  B.,  no. 
Thayer,  Eli,  127,  128. 
Thompson,  George,  92,  96. 
Turner,  Bishop  H.  M.,  82. 

Underhill,  John,  296. 

Valdemar  IV.,  273. 

"  Vermonters,  Song  of  The,"  140. 

Volmer,  King,  273. 

Walker,  Capt.  Jonathan,  117. 

War,  Whittier's  attitude  toward,  134-143. 

Washington,  George,  99-101. 

Webster,  Daniel,  15,  18,  19,  56,  113-115. 

Weld,  Angelina,  104. 

Weld,  Theodore,  104. 

Whipple,  Edwin  P.,  7,  206. 

White,  George  M.,  16  (note),  173,  187. 

Whitman,  Walt,  179,  199,  220,  244,  251. 


329 


330  INDEX. 

Whittier  Club,  195. 

Whittier,  Elizabeth,  27,  28. 

Whittier,  John  (the  father),  24. 

Whittier,  John  Greenleaf,  first  school,  39;  first  loves,  40,  190, 
191  ;  Burns,  41-43  ;  first  poems,  44,  45,  46  ;  as  shoemaker, 
48-50;  at  Haverhill  Academy,  50-56  ;  as  editor,  59-62  ;  at 
tends  anti-slavery  convention  of  '33,  84-89  ;  mobbed,  89-97, 
102-108;  poems  of  freedom,  109-133;  songs  by,  sung  in 
Union  armies,  8,  128-130  ;  W.  and  war,  134-143  ;  as  lobbyist 
and  attender  of  conventions,  143-145;  helps  organize  the 
Free-Soil  party,  146 ;  political  differences  with  Garrison, 
146-169;  London  Convention,  1 55-162  plove  of  children, 
191-193;  bores,  193,  194;  friends,  chapter  iv. ;  correspond 
ence  destroyed,  208,  209;  as  Quaker,  210-214;  religion, 
214-217;  on  woman  suffrage,  218. 

Whittier,  Mary,  26. 

Whittier,  Matthew  Franklin,  24,  25. 

Whittier,  Mrs.,  23, 

Whittier,  Uncle  Moses,  26,  27. 

Winther,  Christian,  274. 

Wingate,  Rev.  Chas.,  53. 

Woman  suffrage,  218. 

"  Wreck  of  the  Palatine,"  243. 

"  Wreck  of  Rivermouth,"  304. 


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